Moonsong
by EtchedInDiamond
Summary: They say everyone deserves a second chance, but those who live forever must bear the curse of always letting go. Look to the moon, friend, and there you shall find your salvation... (And yes, eventually I will take a stab at what will hopefully pass off as Jelsa :/)
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Just an experiment. I'll continue it based on how many people are interested, but otherwise, it'll progress just as quickly as my other stories: very very slowly. Enjoy. I guess.**

* * *

_Do you want to build a snowman?_

_Come on let's go and play!_

_I never see you anymore._

_Come out the door._

_It's like you've gone away…_

"His nose is wrong."

"No it's not."

"I'm telling you, it goes the other way."

Jack Frost crossed his arms. "Sophie Bennett. I've been building snowmen since this country was a colony. I think I know how to put the nose on."

Sophie pouted. Her cheeks were red from the cold, and she rubbed her arms furiously, her impatience rising off of her like steam. "I get it, you're ancient. But everybody knows the pointed tip sticks out!"

Jack rolled his eyes and turned back to survey their wonderful creation. The snowman was shaped in the image of a track runner, baton in hand and all. Every detail was perfectly etched into the snow, from the rivulets of sweat pouring down his brow to the faded tears on his jersey. The other kids had watched with unbelieving fascination as Sophie had sculpted this masterpiece single-handedly. What they didn't know was that Frost was with her every step of the way, giving her helpful tips and using his own powers whenever necessary.

Was it cheating?

Technically, yeah.

But it was fun, and for Jack, that was all that mattered.

Sophie's hand darted out and rearranged the carrot while Jack was distracted. She stepped back, crossed her arms, and smiled. "There. Much better."

"Golly!"

Mr. Dawson, the camp counselor, walked up to the snowman, his jaw dragging a trail through the snow. His owlish eyes were wide behind the rim-wired spectacles he so adored. "Ms. Bennett! What a marvelous snowman!"

Sophie shrugged, trying and failing to hide a proud smile. "It's nothing."

"Nothing? The striking pose, the immaculate detail, the delicate balance required to maintain such a state…I've never seen anything like it in all my years of Winter Fun Camp!" He violently scribbled on his clipboard. "First place! No contest!" He was still crying out adulations as he walked away.

The other kids groaned and started to destroy their own creations. Sophie basked in the heat of their laser glares. She had won.

"Gee golly whiz, Ms. Bennett," Jack said. "You couldn't have done this by yourself. It's almost as if you used magic, but _no_, there's no such thing as magic-"

"Thank you Jack." Sophie grinned.

"No problem. But tonight you're sledding alone, missy."

Sophie's merriment vanished. "What? But tonight's the championship game!"

Jack sighed. "I know, Sophie, but you can't win _every single_ game. It all might go to your head."

"I haven't won every single game."

"Oh really? Let's see. Wasn't it weird that you were able to craft fifty-seven paper snowflakes in just thirty minutes?"

Sophie frowned. "Okay, but that doesn't-!"

"Or when the other team's snow fort conveniently decided to cave in on itself and leave them open for your – I'm sorry, _my_ – snowball attack?"

"But you were-!"

"And finally, Usain Bolt here." He gestured to the snowman. "This is fun, Sophie, but there should be a limit. Your friends are getting suspicious."

Sophie turned away. "What friends?"

Jack instantly regretted his words. He opened his mouth to speak, but wisely shut it. He hated it when her blue eyes shimmered with tears. When her blond bangs spilled out of her beanie and fell over those eyes and her little frame shrank into itself and became a shell.

Things hadn't been easy when Jamie left, but he couldn't imagine what it was like for Sophie.

Jack sighed. "Fine. I'll help. But only-!"

Sophie beamed and hugged him. "Thanks!" she squeaked, and skipped away before Jack could say anything, drawing weird stares from the other kids as she did. Jack frowned. He'd been duped.

"They grow up so fast," he murmured to no one in particular.

He and Jamie had been having so much fun together that college hadn't even been an issue until that big, fat acceptance letter landed on their doorstep. Jack had been shocked; Jamie, ecstatic. After all, what aspiring artist wouldn't want to attend New York University with an art major and nearly zero cost of attendance? Jack had done all he could to convince him not to go: New York was smelly, he'd be mugged every night, artists were broke and starving, etc. But Jamie was adamant, hungry for a life outside of sleepy Burgess, and before Jack knew it, he was on a plane, New York-bound and gone from Jack's life.

He knew he should've frozen that mailman when he had the chance.

But with Jamie gone, Sophie had been eager to take his place as Jack's playmate. And to be honest, Jack didn't mind it as much as he thought he would have. Sophie was only two when Pitch Black had threatened the world with his darkness, and she'd practically grown up with the wonders of the Guardians all around her. She had just as much hopes, dreams, and wonder as Jamie, and admittedly, Jack was grateful for a change.

At first, he thought the fact that Sophie was a girl would make things a bit more awkward (Jack and Jamie had grown a little too mischievous come high school), but Sophie had proved to be every inch as cool Jamie was. So far, at least.

And Jack Frost loved that little girl to pieces.

A whistle blew, snapping Jack out of his reverie. Mr. Dawson stood on a snow mound, hands on his waist like a conquering explorer. "Alright, little artisans! Clean yourselves up, because it's time to head back to the Lodge!"

Jack watched as the kids scrambled towards the Lodge, ignoring Mr. Dawson's frantic commands and barreling into the large cottage where the Camp was based. Normally he would've been so pumped for a chance to attend something called Winter Fun Camp (and to rub it in North's face afterwards), but Jamie's departure had changed something fundamental in him. It had taken weeks for Sophie to convince him to come with her, but even then he wasn't feeling the _fun_ in the Winter Fun Camp.

Maybe the Bennett's weren't the only ones growing up.

Whoa.

Did he really just think that?

Jack shook his head. No. The perk of his job was eternal youth. He could never get old. Otherwise he'd end up just as grumpy as the Easter Bunny. Or fat and hairy like Santa Claus.

He shuddered at the thought.

Jack launched into the air. The winter wind blew against his face, and he relished in the sweet freezing beauty of his beloved season. The treetops layered with packed snow, the earth white all around and the sun filtered through clouds pregnant with precipitation. Kids slipping and laughing atop an old frozen pond by the neighborhood. Cars moving lazily over sleet-filled streets. He glided over the town of Burgess, a wistful smile on his face.

Winter.

Sometimes he wished it were winter all-year round. No fall, spring, or summer, just the snow and the spirit of the holidays and friends sitting by the fire, sipping hot cocoa and sharing ghost stories until the break of day. Winter was a time of love. Of togetherness. Frost could not think of a better place to spend it than his own home, a picturesque small town where everyone knew each other and the air was free and the stars shone nice and bright behind a veil of misty clouds. Burgess was Jack's very heart and soul.

Loads better than New fricking York.

Enough ranting. It's all in the past, he thought.

None of it matters.

XXXXX

Three straight victories in a row.

Mr. Dawson praising her in front of all the other kids.

What could possibly go wrong after this?

Sophie heard the other girls before she saw them. Their giggles were loud and obnoxious, and she was so used to the routine that she began to not mind them as much as she did in the past.

"Hey freak."

Didn't mean it stopped hurting.

Sophie worked her jaw and kept on walking towards her cabin, ignoring the girls but knowing it was futile. She shared the cabin with them, after all.

"We're talking to you, freak. Or are you chatting with Mr. Frost?"

Sophie sighed, stopped, and turned around. He isn't even here now, she thought, but instead she said, "Don't you have better things to do?"

Hadley Prescott was one of those girls who had everything handed to her on a silver platter, and those silver platters were handed to her on golden trays. She lived in West Burgess, in one of those huge mansions in the heart of a fancy gated community. She attended the same middle school as Sophie after transferring out of Vaughn Prep, an expensive private school where students were seen being dropped off at the entrance by limos. Her hair fell in silky chocolate waves, and every feature on her angelic face was carefully made-up, like an actress in a movie. Her designer clothes were out of place in the snow, unbelievably pretty but with no real use or function.

Kind of like the girl wearing them, Sophie thought bitterly.

Hadley arched a perfect eyebrow at her words. She placed manicured hands on her hips. "Excuse me, Ms. Bennett? Did you just talk back at me?"

Her posse of equally beautiful – equally ugly – friends continued to giggle like this was the funniest thing in the world. Sophie reddened. "So what?"

"Your imaginary friend must be pretty rude if you talk this way to people in real life. Maybe you should upgrade. I hear the Easter Bunny has got better manners."

Her friends cracked up, and Hadley allowed herself a little smile, thinking she'd been clever to think up of that all by herself. Sophie bit her tongue. This witch has no idea what she's talking about. Jack was an _angel_ compared to Bunnymund. But she just huffed and stormed away to the cabin. Her stomach dropped when she realized they were following her.

"My mom says when people talk to themselves it means that they're crazy," a girl with boots more expensive than Sophie's entire wardrobe said. "Maybe Sophie's crazy."

"Maybe Sophie needs to see a doctor," Hadley mock-whispered, well aware Sophie could every single word. Sophie looked down, hoping she could melt into the snow and stay there until the spring came. "She might be legit insane."

"Like her big brother."

Sophie's head snapped up.

She rounded on them.

She pushed Boots first, since she was the closest. The girl fell, a shocked expression on her face. The others froze. They had expected her to flee, maybe even stop and cry, but this? Sophie Bennett did not fight back.

She shoved a girl with glitter on her face to get to Hadley, whose cocoa-colored eyes were wide and disbelieving. Sophie stepped forward until they were almost nose-to-nose. Every word seemed to rip out of throat until they weren't really words. They were snarls.

"_Don't talk about my big brother ever again._"

Hadley opened her mouth but all that came out were surprised sputters. Sophie whirled and walked away, stepping over the downed Boots with heated emphasis. The other girls scattered away from her like pigeons. Hadley just stood there, a better snowwoman than anything even Jack could sculpt. As she headed for the cabin and left the witches behind, she didn't feel guilty or anything. She felt proud. Insanely proud. Proud that she finally stood up to her long-time tormentor and proud that they didn't just go quiet. They feared her. Even now she could still catch a whiff of it. She walked into the cabin like a returning queen. A Snow Queen, who ruled over an eternal winter, and who never let anyone tease her or they would pay the price. Sophie collapsed on her bed and stared at the ceiling, chest heaving. Her face was hot and sweaty but she never felt better. She could picture a crowd of people cheering her on. A crowd of only five, but they were the ones who mattered: a white-bearded Russian with cookie crumbs on his barrel chest. A giant talking bunny with a boomerang slung on his hip. A tiny dimple-faced Fairy holding a tiny wand. A portly sandy-haired man snoozing on a floating dune. A handsome young man with snow-white hair, leaning on a wooden staff and smiling proudly.

And someone else. Someone who'd left but was now back and prouder than all of them combined because she was his little sister and he loved her. And he promised her that he was never going to leave again.

It took a while for Sophie to realize that the wetness on her cheeks was not sweat.

XXXXX

"You're mad at me."

"I'm not mad at you."

Jack sighed. He was hoping things would get better after a good flyover, but coming back to a moody Sophie was definitely not one of the things he considered "better". He twirled his cane and fixed a stern look on the girl. "Every time you look at me your face gets scrunched up like either you've just swallowed a lemon or I stink like nobody's business." He sniffed his armpit. "And I'm going for the former on this one."

Sophie kicked at the snow outside her cabin. She tried her best to avoid his penetrating gaze. "It's not you," she muttered. "Or a stupid lemon."

Jack floated off the roof of the cabin and stood close to her. "Then what is it?"

Sophie hid her face behind a veil of golden hair. Jack frowned. She normally wasn't like this and he didn't like it. Not one bit. Oh no please don't tell me she's discovering her hormones or something, he thought with rising dread. Or God forbid, it's that "time of the month". He had enough trouble having to guide Jamie through his puberty phase, and he was a boy. The same gender. What was he going to do when Sophie started asking him about bras or something?

"Is it those girls again? I swear they were avoiding you in there like you had the Spanish influenza or something. Trust me, I'd know."

Sophie looked up to spare him a glare. "What were you doing inside the girls' cabin?"

Jack's face turned a fierce red. Which was enough to make Sophie almost laugh considering how pale his skin was. "I was just checking up on you. It's not like you guys were doing anything…indecent or anything."

Sophie shook her head and stared off into the distance. Hadley and the other girls had indeed been uncharacteristically silent when they finally joined Sophie in their cabin. Boots throwing her namesake at Mach 5 at the shoe rack with barely controlled anger was the only visible reaction she'd gotten from them. It was in that mire of awkwardness that Sophie began to feel the regret of exploding. The realization of the implications of her actions had been enough to hitch her breath. She had made such a fool out of herself! Had Hadley already spread the news around? That Sophie the Freak had finally gone nuts and attacked them like a rabid dog? What will the other kids they say now? What would she see in their eyes this time?

They would never accept her ever again.

Unable to bear it, she had run outside without her coat and gloves and waited out in the cold. Anything to escape their silent accusation.

When Jack had caught up with her, it only made things worse.

"Come on. It's me. You've got to open up, Soph."

Sophie's stomach did an unpleasant twirl when he used his pet name for her. She hated it when he got all sweet and affectionate. "I don't have to tell you anything."

Jack crossed his arms. "Well, if not me, then your parents. Sophie, if you're being bullied, then you need to immediately tell a grown-up-"

"I'm not being bullied!" she cried, stomping one foot onto the packed snow. _Not anymore._ "They can't even look at me now." A sniffle. "They're scared of me."

"Why?" Jack's eyes narrowed. "What did you do?"

"None of your business." With unexpected fire.

"I'm not a fan of the way you're talking to me right now."

"So _what_?"

"Watch your tone, Sophie!"

"You're not my big brother! You'll never be like Jamie! Never!"

Jack opened his mouth to speak but froze mid-way when her words finally registered through the haze of anger in his head. He remembered when he had full-on run into one of North's yetis on accident; he felt like that right now, like the air had been forced out of his lungs in that single split second. Or maybe like when he was in the presence of the Sandman. Like it was a dream and he would wake up and all he had to do was pinch himself. A blink later he would be laughing with Sophie and everything would be okay and when the sun was down they would sled down milky white hills under moonlight to their heart's content.

No.

This wasn't a dream.

This was a nightmare.

Sophie was crying.

She wiped at her eyes and stared at her boots. Her hair hung loosely over her face. Her posture screamed profound grief. Jack's fingers were white around his staff. The tension was as thick as a block of ice. A hot lump was stuck in his throat, and every time he swallowed something tried to seep out of the corner of his eyes but he remained strong. He would not cry. Not like before. Not like when Jamie had told him he wanted to be alone in New York. Get some space. Find himself. Which to Jack meant that his best friend never wanted to see his face again.

"That's what you think, then."

"Jack."

"That's okay."

"Jack!"

"I get it."

He blasted into the air, leaving a small crater of snow behind. Sophie's pleas were drowned in the rushing air, in the storm in his head and in his heart. He flew and flew until the town of Burgess was far below and cars were the size of little toys under the Christmas tree. It was up here that maybe he could forget himself. Fly and see the world below him and imagine himself as an eagle, majestic and brave and with no worries or concerns save for the next meal. Here, he didn't have to think about the girl who had hurt him. The girl who did not remind her so much of Jamie, the one who left, as she did another girl, a girl from another life, a girl who he had loved with all his heart and had lost forever, and who still haunted his dreams ever since he received the curse of remembering her.

No.

There would be no peace for Jack tonight.

XXXXX

Sophie stayed silent for the rest of day.

She had screamed until her voice cracked, begging for Jack to stop and come back to her. She apologized and sobbed to empty air and when she stopped she was on her knees. She no longer minded the cold; it hurt too much inside to bother with things like snow on her thin jeans or thirty degree temperature.

_You're not my big brother! You'll never be like Jamie! Never! _

Had she really said that? Replaying it in her head, it was almost as if she had taken a pistol and shot it through her best friend's chest. She had taken their shared pain and every syllable had driven it deeper and deeper into his heart. When Jamie left they were there for each other, and it was for Jamie that they grew to love one another. Deep inside she knew that Jack had assumed his friend's position as her brother, and that every second of every day they spent together he was trying to live up to that standard. Those words had broken something between them, something that could perhaps never be mended.

God. Had she really said that?

Going back to the cabin was not nearly as hard as she had thought it was going to be before her fight with Jack. Hadley and her posse stared daggers at her, but she paid them no attention. They continued to chat about the newest designer brands and how cute they thought so-and-so was while Sophie lay on her bed, once more staring at the ceiling and crying quiet tears under the cover of the sheets.

She was asleep before she had even known she had closed her eyes.

There was a knock on the door, and Ms. Sawyer the Cabin Head popped her perky head in and announced it was time for the last game of the day. Her voice was in such high an octave that it was enough to snap Sophie from the realm of golden sand and dreams. The other girls rushed out of the door like freed cattle, leaving Sophie alone, forgotten, and confused.

She looked out the window and moaned. Night had fallen while she slept, which meant that her cabin mates had benignly neglected to wake her up for the activities in the late afternoon. Whatever. She was too dried out to be bitter about it. She stood and checked herself in the bathroom mirror. At least they didn't draw on her with permanent marker or anything.

Groaning, she put on warmer clothes and went out into the dark, a line of lampposts lighting her way toward the Lodge. Snow was falling, and her feet made tiny crunching sounds as she ran. As a child, she used to be so amused by the noise, and she would make Jamie stomp around like an idiot just to hear it over and over again. Their relatives would laugh, and the other kids would point and jeer, but Sophie loved it. And he never minded doing it, even as a senior in high school. He'd still carry her out to the yard drenched with snow and crunch away, and she would never ever fail to laugh.

She walked up to the Lodge and opened the door. It made the loudest creaking noise as she did and every head inside turned to look at her. She froze in the threshold and smiled weakly.

"Someone should oil these hinges," she joked half-heartedly. Some of the adult chaperones laughed, but from the kids, all she got were judging glares. They were seated on the long oak tables that took up most of the room in neat orderly rows. One of the girls close to her turned to her friend and whispered. A boy was smiling like an idiot and muttering to his buddies. Soon enough, whispers slithered across the spacious hall and she could hear them snorting, trying to contain their laughter. The gigantic fireplace at the head of the Lodge was burning, and the bright flames made their shadows dance like demons from one of Sophie's grandmother's stories. Stories about demons and spirits that cackled and cackled until they drove their victim insane from the noise.

Sophie's face burned, but she took her seat at the end of the row, all by herself, and looked proudly ahead. They would not get the pleasure of seeing her break.

Mr. Dawson cleared his throat and the whispers stopped. He was by the fireplace, beloved clipboard in hand. "I know we're all very happy to know Ms. Bennett is alive and well, but settle down." He needlessly adjusted his ridiculous glasses, hoping to draw attention to his unique fashion choice. "Now, as we all know, the time has come for the Annual Sled Racing Championship on Burgess Hill."

The campers cheered, and even Sophie could not help but swing her legs in excitement and give a little yell in her head.

Mr. Dawson raised his hand, and the kids quieted down. He frowned as if he was surprised it actually worked. "Uh, so we are all very excited, but it's important that we establish some ground rules before moving on. It is very important that you listen to these rules, because we do not want you to get hurt like others in previous years. Poor little kid had to have surgery on his collarbone one camp. Oh, and one girl flipped her sled so hard it took me and three other parents to remove the wooden splinter from her ankle. The city council almost banned the game after that, but I managed to sweet talk them into keeping it. Never underestimate Momma Dawson's homemade gingerbread, folks…"

Sophie filtered out the rest of the counselor's words like most of the other kids in the room. Already she was strategizing, planning the best pushes and slides that would get her to cross the finish line before anyone else in her bracket. She had actually constructed the sled with her parents before the winter break from the worn out remains of Jamie's old one. The finished product was new and sleek, with shiny metal guards and spiraling snowflakes stenciled into the wood. Jack had helped, of course, offering her advice from his days injecting fun into the lives of other kids with other sleds…

The thought of Jack put a sour taste in Sophie's mouth. It was a good, warm memory, but her most recent one involving him was enough to shed a bad light on all the others. She shoved her thoughts away and returned to reality just in time for Mr. Dawson to finish droning.

"So if you follow all of the rules I have just mentioned you will be absolutely fine. The other parents and I will be watching with eagle eyes, so if you do happen to forget the rules, we will be on the scene as fast as possible. Let me take roll real quick before we begin." They groaned as he methodically looked up and down on his sheet, counting each and every little head in front of him before tucking the clipboard under his arm. "We're all accounted for. Now, who's ready to sled?"

The roar was deafening.

Mr. Dawson's eyes twinkled from behind the lens of his glasses. "That's what I like to hear."

They filed out of the Lodge like a flock of sheep, with chaperons at the edges boxing them in and trying their best to contain the palpable excitement. Sophie was right in the middle of the bunch, and for this one moment, the other kids did not mind being so close to her. They were thinking too much about the rush and the thrill of sledding down the biggest hill in Burgess to care about one girl's issues. Sophie let herself forget the pain from hours ago and rode the wave, smiling privately as dozens of feet made tiny crunching noises on the snow.

Burgess Hill was said to be the very spot their founder planted his feet and proudly declared: "It is here that I shall build my house!" The Founder's Hall had long since been moved to make space for a booming residential market, but the hill remained. It was in the middle of the camp grounds, which altogether was found not a mile away from Sophie's neighborhood. An expanse of white ringed by pine trees, and one looming mound rising above the flatness. Burgess Hill.

The kids grabbed their sleds from the fence that bordered the clearing, the place they had set them in the morning before the games had begun. Sophie's was easy to spot, with its awesome design and large size; it stood out like a sore thumb among the others. Some campers had actually tried to steal it, but Sophie had caught them, earning her a pat on the back and the delight of watching Mr. Dawson lecture the would-be sled thieves. The chaperons, too tired to care, let the kids run out across the endless snow toward the hill unattended.

A crowd of parents had gathered around the foot of the hill to watch the game. As Sophie and the others arrived gasping for breath, she spied her parents watching her from among the throng of tightly packed adults. They smiled and waved. Sophie's face broke out for her first real grin since the morning and she waved back.

Mr. Dawson jogged up to them. His glasses were foggy, and he stopped to wipe them off, breathing heavily. "You kids," he gasped. "Will be the death of me. Alright, up the hill!"

They bounded up Burgess Hill. Many of them yelped and slid back, and they laughed. Sophie tripped and ended up getting a mouth full of snow, but this time she was laughing along with everybody else. If just getting up the hill was such good fun, Sophie couldn't wait to see how sliding down was going to be.

"Okay you little ruffians," Mr. Dawson cried. He had his trusty clipboard out, and he casually wrapped a polka dot scarf around his neck.

No wonder he needs glasses, Sophie thought to herself. He has a blind sense of fashion.

She giggled, realizing a second later that that was the sort of thing Hadley would say.

"Get in your brackets!"

Speaking of…

Hadley and her shadows were the last up the hill, normally flawless faces red with exertion. Their eyes locked for a moment, and something ugly reared its head behind those brown orbs. Sophie lifted her chin and stared back. She wasn't backing down this time.

Not when she and her were in the first bracket to race.

"Line up, kids, line up," Mr. Dawson said, grabbing the first racers and placing them side by side at the starting line. He gripped Sophie and tore her away from Hadley's gaze and positioned her accordingly. She stared down the slope of Burgess Hill and noticed the orange cones at the hill's foot. It seemed such a long way down, longer than it looked from below. Nervousness started to flutter in her stomach, but it was a good kind of nervous. The one you get when you aren't afraid of losing, you're excited to know what it feels like to win.

Sophie bounced up and down, ready and eager to go. Then Hadley was there next to her, her presence spoiling it a bit. Just a bit. "Are you ready to lose, freak?" she murmured so Mr. Dawson wouldn't hear. The derision in her voice remained, but there was something else in there. Something like respect. But the kind of helpless, disgusted respect you give when that person happens to be someone you really, really hate.

Sophie smiled. "I was just about to say the same thing to you, Prescott."

She turned away and tried to contain another grin as Hadley simmered beside her. She didn't know why she had answered with that gag-inducing cliché. It was corny, like something out of the movies Jamie liked to watch. Or something Jack would say. But it felt right saying it.

"On your sleds, boys and girls!" Mr. Dawson announced.

Sophie was on the ground before everyone else, on her belly on the sled and raring to go. She gripped the railing of her sled, and she was amazed how well she seemed to mould against it. It felt perfect, natural even. She didn't know if there was a sledding category in the Olympics, but if there was, she'd be in it in a flash. Hadley flopped down next to her, muttering words Jamie called "Dad-can't-get-the-car-to-start-words".

This was going to be a walk in the park, Sophie thought.

And she wouldn't even need Jack to help her out.

"Ready!" Mr. Dawson cried.

The kids behind them were yelling. Down below, the parents were cheering, and she heard two familiar voices crying out her name.

"Set!"

She closed her eyes and steadied her breathing, ignoring the other racers, ignoring Hadley's hate-filled glare, and focusing only on one thing.

"Go!"

She pushed, and the world was a blur of white and the beat of her heart pounded in her ears like soldiers pounding on war drums. The brush of wood against snow and the cries of those who watched melded into a symphony of pure noise that drowned out everything else. The cones glowed like orange beacons, guiding her home and onward to sweet victory.

Victory.

She was reminded of a night from long ago when the darkness seemed to overwhelm the sleepy town of Burgess. But then Jack was there, heroic and brave, and so was Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and the Sandman, and together they had pushed back the darkness with their might. And Jamie was there too, and he had stood up to the pale thing on the frozen pond and with his heart and his belief he defeated it, and the world was never threatened by that darkness again. Afterwards Jamie had let her fall asleep in his arms in the middle of the night when they got back, and she remembered thinking: this is what it feels like. This is the true victory.

Sophie gave a shout of pure joy straight from her heart, and she thought to herself that she had never felt so at peace in her entire life.

But then Hadley was there, pushing against her with jealousy and bitterness in her red eyes, and suddenly there was a tug as their rails met and hooked together. Sophie's cry was cut short, and it turned to one of shock and fear.

Then they weren't sliding. They were tumbling. They were tumbling and spinning and Sophie's world became chaos as she felt her body leave her beloved sled and fly into the cold night air, and she was screaming. Screaming and her heart was beating and the only thing she could hope for was that Jack would come flying out of the dark and take her into his arms and they could start all over without the tears and the hurt and the despair of never experiencing what she hoped they would someday come to know.

Then the white earth rose to meet her, and there was just a little pain, and she could not help but think to herself that the little crunching noise she made when she landed against the snow was a little different than the usual, and then she sank into the soft nothingness and thought no more.

XXXXX

"It's not like she meant it," Jack said to the statue. "I mean, we all get upset at some point in our lives. Sometimes we get really upset. She can't possibly have really meant what she said, right?"

The statue of Thaddeus Burgess stared back at Jack, his bronze face frozen in a mask of firm resolution. Jack frowned, reached out, and chipped at a bit of snow that had formed on the tip of the founder's flowing beard.

"I mean, I'm sure you've been ticked off a few times. Building a city isn't easy. I bet you had other old white dudes with awesome beards like yours telling you how to build this hall, or where to put this house. Must've been annoying."

Thaddeus Burgess stared on.

"But you move on, right? You ignore those words because you know they mean well and sometimes people get upset. You move on because that's life and there's no reason to sulk over it, and there's absolutely nothing stopping you from reconciling with the ones you love and explaining to them that it's crazy to talk to a bronze statue in the middle of town and I'm actually going insane, aren't I?"

"Completely off your rocker."

Jack shot up in the air about five feet before regaining his composure. He took a deep breath and turned around where he was floating. "You're right. I am going insane. Not only am I talking to a statue, there's this big fat talking rabbit in front of me and I must be out of my mind."

He ducked to avoid the boomerang before the Easter Bunny had even reached for it.

The severe-looking bunny snatched his weapon out of the air and gave Frost a scary smile. "Watch it, mate. Wouldn't want to find that little stick of yours snapped in half one fine morning now would you?"

Jack Frost dropped to the ground and gripped his friend's massive paw in welcome. "Long time no see. It's a good see, despite that very icky comment that I'll pretend I never heard."

Bunnymund smirked. "Likewise, Frosty."

"So why is there a convenient number of zero people out in the city square tonight?"

"Let's just say they're all googly-eyed at the discovery of a pretty egg in their homes filled with a few hundred dollar bills."

Jack Frost shook his head. "Pretty sure that's against the rules, dude."

The Easter Bunny scoffed and lightly stroked the handle of his boomerang. "Don't talk to me about rule-breaking, Frost. Mr. I'm all Fun and Games and who cares if a few hundred thousand cars get stuck on the highway."

Jack fought back a bark of guilty laughter. "I thought you got over that."

The bunny glared at him. "Wrong there, mate."

Jack rolled his eyes. He lifted his cane and the ground beneath the bunny's feet turned to ice. The Guardian yelped and fell flat on his stomach. Jack floated out of harm's way and sat lightly on the shiny brown head of Thaddeus Burgess. "So why are you here, anyway? North still wanting me to help him out up there? Sandy needs some ice down his shirt to wake him up? Or do the fairies need me to defrost another broken tooth valve again while I pretend like they're not watching me bend over?"

The Easter Bunny got up and dusted himself off. He almost reached for his boomerang but decided against it when Jack smiled and looked just about ready to fly to safety. "I'm sorry to inform you that life goes on with or without Jack Frost there to ruin everybody's bloody day." He sighed. "Routine check-up in this area. Something right terrible has just happened and I need to help spread some hope around. From what I've heard, looks like they'll need it."

Jack frowned. "Didn't know you did that."

His friend shrugged. "Well, we do what we can every chance we get."

Jack sighed and used the tip of his cane to catch the falling snow. When a piece landed, he turned it into a beautiful snowflake and released it, watching it until it disappeared into the dark and then he repeated the process. "So," he said, this time making a chain of snowflakes erupt out of his cane, and smiling nostalgically at the spiraling shape. "What's this terrible event that made you come all the way out here to see my pretty face?"

The Easter Bunny's boomerang hit its mark this time, knocking the cane out of Jack's hand and earning an indignant shout. The bunny caught it and inspected the tribal markings on the wood, stuck in deep thought. "Like I said: not everything's about you. Some poor tyke killed herself in a sledding race not too long ago. Right in front of the other camp members and parents. Horrible business. Downright ugly. Some fairies saw it happen and they zipped all the way to Denver to come tell me. Came here as fast as my bunny legs could carry me. Thought it was strange considering that they didn't tell you, since you live here and all. Isn't that strange, mate? Mate?" The Easter Bunny looked up from his boomerang. "Frosty?"

A little snowflake floated down onto the Guardian's snout, its perfect, frozen symmetry holding for one stunning moment before it finally dissolved into the ether.

Jack was gone.

_The beginning of the end_

No.

_No._

_Oh God, please no._

Burgess Hill, he thought. That's where we left the sled. That's where they were going to race. Need to get to Burgess Hill.

The town raced by him in a vortex of sound and color. He flew as fast as his power allowed, faster than he ever flew before. His heart had grown claws and was trying to rip its way up his throat. There was him and the Hill in his head and everything other than that did not matter because of the thing that waited for him there. The thing he did not want to see but needed to more than anything else.

Oh God please don't do this.

He froze in place, the Hill just below him. Breathing like a dying man, he dove down towards the cluster of people by the foot of the mound, ignoring the broken wooden sled and the hint of red below it on the disturbed slope. Jack landed and pushed through the huddle, not caring if they heard him or felt him but only caring about the thing they were looking at. He made it through, and then he saw it.

It wasn't sadness that overtook him first. It was a thoughtful confusion, a sort of puzzlement that slowed time and the world around him.

This can't be right.

This is a just a dream.

Are you listening, Sandy?

Wake me up.

The thing in the pink winter coat, the broken thing, stared up at him accusingly with those sightless eyes the color of a winterless day.

Please wake me up.

A woman was wailing behind him. He didn't need to turn around to know who it was. The sound chilled him to the core of his being. It was colder than any December wind or any arctic ice because it was devoid of joy. It was a scream that came from the soul and was pure in its grief, and the man beside her was crying as well, and hearing that particular man weeping – no, _gasping_ – like a newborn cut to Jack's heart.

I'm begging you.

WAKE ME UP GODDAMIT

Jack Frost flew away before the ambulances came. He passed them by as he flew down the road, away from that lifeless thing and the screaming parents and the little children who looked at the thing with wide, haunted eyes. He ignored the brown shape that had run alongside him, urging him, pleading him, to come back, but he had flown faster than it could run, and he was soon gone and out of sight. He flew until Burgess was miles behind him and the country dissolved into a mess of worthless matter. He flew until he came to a crag by the sea, a height of dead rocky land that stabbed into the waves. He stumbled onto the great cliff and felt the salty ocean spray wet his already damp face. He held his staff aloft and screamed not at the raging winter sea, but at the crescent moon bleeding light into the dark.

"You did nothing!" he screamed. "You sat up there and did nothing while she died in front of you!"

The moon looked on, and the little guardian below it fell to his knees and gripped his stick with pale, trembling hands.

"Who are you?" he said with a sudden rage. Every fiber of his being strained and fought against the light illuminating his body, and he was filled with disgust and hatred for the thing that sat up there in the sky and was always silent, even when he needed it the most. "How dare you? How dare you do this to me?"

Bright, wet eyes stared upwards at the moon that seemed to be hiding behind its own shadow. The same moon that had revived him after he had fallen in that frozen pond and lost his little sister to the irretrievable ages. The moon that had watched as the people he valued most in this world left him forever. The moon that he wished would crumble beneath his gaze and fall to the hungry sea below him.

"Why didn't you just let me die?"

And with that final question asked, Jack Frost stood, cast his staff aside, and threw himself to the waves.

The guardian fell.

And the one who sat above answered.

A single shaft of moonlight pierced the wintry clouds and kissed Jack's skin for one spellbinding second. He felt all of eternity pass in the blink of one tear-struck eye and for just that single moment, a moment out of the millions he'd spent on this Earth, everything felt indecipherably and irrevocably _right_.

Then he hit the waves, and that aged life ended.

And another began.

* * *

**A/N: Very wordy, but that's my style. Anyway, drop a review if you like it. If you don't do it anyway **


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thanks for the love, guys. Here's the second chapter.**

* * *

_He was certain he was dead the moment he hit the water._

_ The impact forced everything out of him, and he immediately choked on salt and brine. The toss of the waves dashed him against the black cliff face, and Jack was sure something inside of him had broken beyond repair. The pull of the ocean dragged him down below the tumultuous waves, and he was cut off from sweet, needed air._

_ He sank deeper and deeper, his life escaping in little bubbles from his open mouth. As his vision faded, and his heartbeat slowed to nothingness, the last thing he saw was the moonlight dancing on the surface of the sea, and perhaps a slight twinkling on the face of the blurry moon, like The Man on the Moon was winking at him, knowing something Jack didn't know, and perhaps would never know._

_ Jack counted his heartbeats as he waited to die._

_ One…two…three…_

_ One…two…_

_ One…_

_ He closed his eyes._

_ Suddenly he was rising and rising, like a submarine from the ocean depths, and before he knew it, before he could surrender and die, he was breaching the waves, and he was screaming, but his scream was lost in the roar of the greatest storm he had ever seen raging above him…_

_**Your end is your beginning**_

Jack gasped as rainwater pelted his face.

What the hell?

One moment he was ready to give up and die, and the next he been forced out of the belly of the sea to enter this maelstrom. Confused, he looked about, treading the treacherous waters and trying to keep his head above the surface.

The clouds were dark and heavy. Tendrils of purple lightning snaked out of the sky, illuminating Jack's terrified face for split seconds. The wind howled like a dying beast, whipping the hood of Jack's jacket about him. The waves rose and fell around him, like the fins of megaladons nearly breaking the surface. The rain fell in torrents, blinding Jack and adding to his bewilderment.

_What the hell? _

Jack cursed and launched into the wild air. He hadn't been flying for a second when a giant wave appeared out of nowhere and slammed into him. The wall of water devoured him and bore him away. For a moment he was lost in swirl of the darkest blue. Is this how I'm going to die, he thought with fear. Not peacefully, but in a middle of an ocean storm without any idea of where I am?

Jack broke through the surface, gasping for air, just in time to see something with wood and towering torn sails and little dots that were people running about in terror rise up to meet him.

He hit the deck of the gigantic object and surrendered to dark oblivion.

**XXXXX**

Jack woke up to find himself being eaten alive.

Well. Not exactly. The seagull was picking at his face, its sharp peak prodding at his ear and trying to tug it from his head. Jack opened his eyes, stared into the curious dark eyes of the bird, and freaked out. He yelped and waved his arms until the seagull squawked in annoyance and flew away.

It took Jack a while to regain his breath. His head hurt like someone had taken an anvil and smashed it on his head. His whole body, for that matter. He groaned and ran a hand through his hair. Sand sprinkled out, getting into Jack's eyes and mouth, causing him to sputter and curse.

"The hell?" he whispered.

He looked around and discovered himself on a beach of white sand. Above, the sky bore none of the rage and fire it had just a second before. Instead, the sun was shining in a robin's-egg blue sky, with just a tiny wisp of cloud floating serenely in the east. Gentle waves the color of the sky lapped at the shore, tickling Jack's toes and instilling in him a calmness that soon replaced the terrified confusion. Behind him was the start of a tropical forest, the bright green brush exotic and inviting, promising him the delight of swinging hammocks and tasty coconut juice.

He rolled onto his back and closed his eyes. He let the sun shine on him, thinking for the first time in his life as Jack Frost about how _good_ heat felt. The sound of wheeling seagulls and the slow rush of mild waves enveloped him.

Jack wanted to lie there forever, but the calm allowed his thoughts to roam freely, and they inevitably returned to the memory of casting himself off the rock, and the thing under moonlight that had broken him forever.

He got up. Jack's entire body screamed in protest, but he knew that lying down on some random beach would get him nowhere. Something had happened while he had dropped into the ocean deeps, something that had pulled him up against his will and threw him into the middle of a storm over God knows where. Mind racing, he began to walk down the length of the crescent beach. The sand was warm and he liked the way it felt under his feet, not entirely unlike fresh snow in a winter morning. As he strolled down the beach, he discovered what looked like boards of splintered wood lying haphazardly on the sand. He frowned, stopped, and bent over to pick one up. There was a gold plaque on the wooden piece, with a large, flowing script in the center. It read: _Captain's Quarters_.

Jack grunted and threw it aside. He found out that the wood made some sort of trail of bread crumbs leading to the other side of the beach. Frowning, he followed the path, the only sound the birds above and the whispering tropic breeze. He rounded the bend and repressed a gasp.

The hulk of a great ship lay broken on the shore, slumped against a huge boulder that straddled the coast and the ocean. Jack could picture the ruined ship on its last leg approaching the island (that _must_ have been where Jack was), pieces of its sides breaking off and dropping into the waves, and finally with a massive groan slamming against the rock that waited ashore. Jack marveled at the sight for a moment, and then approached the carcass of the once majestic ship carefully.

There were more bits and pieces of wood and furniture strewn about, tangled with the seaweed and clumps of unmentionables. Gulls and other birds were pecking about the ruin, staring at Jack cautiously but always ignoring him and returning to their scavenging. Once Jack was closer to the ship, he took another second to stand and gape. The great ship had been bisected by the boulder. Jack faced its starboard end, and a shattered oval window that must have been where passengers could look out to sea without going on the deck stared almost accusingly at him.

A flash of the previous night's memory came to him. He remembered the wave, and then crashing down onto slick wet wood while men and women in drenched white uniforms ran about in utter panic.

Jack stumbled back, clutching his head. "Ugh," he groaned. The memory had hit him like a battering ram. He walked forward and rested a hand against the bulkhead to wait for the pain to subside.

An almighty crack sounded, and Jack looked up to see the topmast snap off the ship and fall towards him with a shudder and a groan.

Without thinking, Jack leapt to the side just as the mast landed on the spot he had previously been. It crashed to the beach, spraying sand and debris over Jack but thankfully not crushing him under its weight. Jack coughed and brushed sand away from him. He got to his knees, using a small fragment of rock to help him up. Once he was on his feet, he looked down and discovered that it was not a rock at all, but the head of a sailor slumped over the railing of the crow's nest.

Jack recoiled from the body and frantically wiped the hand that had touched the head over his jacket. His heart hammered in his chest as he looked into the unseeing eyes of the unfortunate man. It reminded him of another set of eyes, eyes that had looked up into the sky leaking remnants of tears…

Jack stumbled away, covering his eyes and failing to get the dreaded memory out of his head. As he did so, he found himself inside the shattered ruins of the ship. The wood paneling was slick beneath his trembling palms, and he looked to his right and the corridor was strewn with broken chairs and fallen portraits. Jack rested for a moment in order to calm his nerves. When he finished, he got up to walk back to the beach.

Something sharp pressed against his neck and he froze.

"Do not move," a rough voice hissed.

"Alright pal," Jack said, surprised by the sound of a fellow human voice - and that fact that he could be _seen_ - but complying. "Take it easy."

"Do you see those stairs ahead?" the voice – definitely a man, or at least a very gruff woman – ordered. Jack looked and saw a set of stairs at the end of the hall. "We are going to go to the second level."

"Okay, but I thought I wasn't supposed to move."

Whatever he was holding pressed further into his skin. Jack grimaced. "Gotcha."

Jack held his hands up over his head and walked up the stairs. He could hear the man breathing heavily behind him, and the tip of his weapon would tremble every now and again. "Are you okay, man?" he ventured. "You sound like you're hurt or something."

"Don't mind me," the man grunted. His breathing became more labored as they trudged slowly up the steps. "There is a door to your right. Get inside."

Jack nodded and stepped past the threshold of the room. It must've been a very fancy-looking room before the storm, but the purple upholstery and gigantic bed were soggy with seawater, and it was flooded to Jack's ankles. He spied an oval portrait of a mustachioed man in a white military uniform and an exceptionally beautiful woman in his arms hanging above the bed, the only thing intact in the ruined room. The door closed behind him.

"So can I turn around now?" Jack asked. He kept his voice calm, almost bored. The slightest provocation could end up with him skewered through the throat.

"You may," the man said. "But if you try anything…"

Jack got it. He took his time turning around, not wanting to scare him. He thought about freezing him where he stood and making a run for it, but he decided against it. He had to find out where the hell he was sooner or later, so he might as well do it now.

The man from the portrait stared back at him. But instead of a carefully groomed appearance, he was a caricature of the image, blonde hair hanging wet and loose and his uniform drenched and torn. In his eyes were broken veins and desperation, and a profound sense of loss that Jack, until recently, could never have fully understood. This man's life had been ruined.

Jack stared at the gleaming rapier pointedly. "Are you going to get that out of my face?"

The man realized he'd still been holding his sword at his throat. He hurriedly sheathed it and rushed to a chipped window by the bed, forgetting Jack. "I apologize," he said, eyes still glued onto whatever was happening below. "Circumstance has made me a very careful man."

"So you're just going to let me go free?"

The man spared him a quick glance. None of the harsh suspicion from before was present, only a slightly begrudging acknowledgment. "Despite your strange appearance, you do not strike me as an evil man. Not like the ones on the ship."

Jack frowned and joined him by the shattered porthole. The man didn't even flinch as they stood together, nearly shoulder-to-shoulder. He may have been harbored suspicion, but the man was quick to trust. He pointed at the beach. "Look," he said in a low voice. "They're taking the first mate."

Jack followed the direction of his finger.

The men were dressed in leaves and loincloths. On their dark skin was tribal war paint, bright colors that may have come across as gaudy if it weren't for the wicked spears and piercings that they bore. There were maybe twenty of them, tall and strong, all gathered around a slight-looking man in soaked trousers and a white linen button-down. The raven-haired man, not yet twenty, wildly brandished a saber. They could hear his cries from the room above, desperate and pained but charged with prideful aggression. They mingled with the laughter of the painted men who taunted him. They poked at him with their spears, dancing away when the rapier swished too close. The first mate could bear it no longer and dove headfirst into the circle of men, his sword finally drawing blood. One of the men, a vile-looking beast with a spike through his nostrils, clutched his thigh and fell back with a cry. The others cried out and bore down on the young man, beating him with the butt of their spears. Jack moved to aid him but the man held his shoulder.

"It is no use," he said. "I tried and they nearly had my head."

Jack watched the savages stop their attack and pick up the sailor's bruised and bleeding form from the wet sand. They whooped in delight and carried him away toward the forest, where they soon melted into the shadows of the brush, leaving only a mess of footprints, a cavalry saber, and bloodstains that were quickly washed away by the tide.

"That was all kinds of wrong," Jack said, sickened by not only the scene that had played itself out in front of him but the fact that he had done nothing but watch. "We should've done something."

The man closed his eyes, a crease on his strong brow. "It was what Robert would've wanted." A sigh. "He was always waiting for a chance to give his life for the crown."

Jack eyed him. "The crown?"

"Yes, the crown."

"You're telling me you're a king."

The man – the king – stared at him as if he had sprouted another head. "Of course."

Jack arched his eyebrow. "Like, a legit king."

His chest expanded, and he stood a little taller than before. In fact, he almost towered over Jack, and he began to question whether it was a good idea to have contemplated turning him into an icicle. "I am King Aleksander IV, lord and monarch of Arendelle and all the realms within. The colors of my House are green and yellow, and my crest is the crocus, the flower of rebirth."

Jack suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. Great, he thought, I'm back in the age of imperialism. What does he want me to do now, kiss his hand and make his bed?

"You would do well to show me the proper respect. At first, I thought you a simple stowaway, but you're obviously not of this country."

Oh, you have no idea.

"Something like that," said Jack. He looked around the room. Everything, from the texture of the soggy floor rugs to the design of the bedposts, seemed off. Not in a bad way, like he had found himself in some twisted _Twilight Zone_, but strangely and uniquely _different_. And as far as Jack knew, there was no such thing as a kingdom of Arendelle on any map he knew, although it did sound vaguely Norwegian. That's it, he thought. As punishment for my attempted suicide, the Man in the Moon has sent me to an alternate version of Norway to atone for my sins. I'll probably be making ice sleds to amuse the general population for the rest of my life.

Jack traced a finger across a row of embroidered snowflakes on the silk curtains. "So what happened to this ship?"

Aleksander slumped onto his bed. It made a wet squelching sound that to Jack made the whole thing seem very…un-kingly, if that was a word. "We were on a diplomatic mission to Weselton. The Duke had placed a very threatening embargo on our goods, and many were beginning to think war was on the horizon. My wife and I decided to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict rather than get the war machine rolling, so, against the counsel of our…"

"Council," Jack finished.

"Yes," the king coughed. "We took the _Sea Stag_ out for its first voyage in a decade. The weather-readers had predicted clear skies and calm seas, so when the storm came out of nowhere, things became…"

"Hectic." Jack remembered the ship struggling against the wind and the waves, and the poor men and women screaming and slipping on the deck.

"Quite," breathed the king. Aleksander's face had grown very pale. "The last thing I remember before those heathens woke me up with their spears was the ship dashing against the rock, and my wife falling from the crack in the bulkhead."

Jack turned to the portrait again and noted at the pale, dark-haired woman who looked so frail and delicate beside the robust, grinning Aleksander. He pictured her disappearing into the wooden fracture and falling into the waves, and he closed his eyes. "I'm sorry."

Aleksander stood smartly, heels together and back rim rod straight. He adjusted the buttons on his dark uniform and stared out into the calm blue sea. Despite looking like a dog come in from the rain, he exuded the power and authority every good king did. "She may still be alive. The island natives had taken a few others before I managed to escape." He gripped the scabbard of his sword. "And Daemon here had a chance to taste mongrel blood."

Jack snorted, earning him a hot glare. "Who names their sword?" he said. "I've had my staff my whole life and I never gave it a…" he trailed off, as if suddenly remembering something. Jack began to rifle around the pockets of his jacket and pants. He looked around with wide eyes and a growing panic. Aleksander watched him with a disapproving frown.

"I'll have you know Daemon has been in my family for countless generations," Aleksander huffed. He inspected the elegant handle of the rapier, tired eyes shining with pride. "My father wielded it against the marauders in the north, and his father before him against the wicked Usurper and his robber-soldiers. Seeing as that I have no son, Daemon will have to rest in the Armory until a male inheritor is born. A shame, but a small shame. My daughters will grow up to be fine rulers, Daemon or not." He nodded confidently to himself. "Say," he said, looking up. "I never got your name."

He was alone.

When Aleksander made it down to the beach, he found the strange young man with white hair – hair that had awoken in him a chilling familiarity – wading out to sea, already waist deep in the crystalline water. He was splashing about like a madman, trying and failing to look for something that was obviously quite dear to him.

"Young man!" he bellowed, feeling extremely vulnerable with his back to the forbidding undergrowth. "What the blazes are you doing?"

Aleksander's voice was a muted buzzing in Jack's ear. His breath quickened as each splash and crash of the waves pounded in his heart like a nail in a coffin a dread inevitability. He cursed with a violence he had never before felt and angry tears formed in the red edges of his vision. To search the surrounding waters would be an effort made in vain. It was useless. He would not find it here. He would never find it here.

Jack's staff was lost to him forever.

**XXXXX**

The woman knew she was going to die.

She had known it even before the storm had come. It began as a pinch in her chest, a little nagging feeling that she had written off as nerves before they set to sail. Then, as they rode the waves, a gnawing on her bones, some hungry sea spirit that had latched onto her and threatened to eat her alive. And when the storm had manifested out of the west, it was a howl in her soul that matched the howl of the wind gust by tempestuous gust. The ship splitting in twain had confirmed it at last, and as she had fallen into the swirling darkness, Aleksander screaming and reaching out a futile hand, she had thought herself dead.

But no. Dying would come later.

They would not give her the luxury of an easy passing.

They had revived her in the cage they kept her in. Spitting out saltwater, she had recovered only to see their dark, painted faces grinning savagely at her and she had screamed. Then came the gag, and then the rough rocking as they carried her deeper and deeper into the forest. They carried her over gurgling creeks and treacherous paths choked with vines. They carried her over hills and mountains and through deep valleys that rang with birdsong and bestial hoots. And everywhere was the unnatural brush, the strange exotic plants and trees that did not belong this far north. The place was aberrant and hot and she had begun to sweat in her ruined dress.

When they stopped, it was already dark, and she had fallen asleep in her cage. Torches lit the clearing, but she could see little else. Shadows darted in and out of the fire's reach, and now and then she could hear a child giggle, and she had begun to cry. Nothing so innocent should have sounded so…evil. And all around her the hideous, steady, pounding beat of a drum.

"Yes," whispered the voice.

She spun where she lay. "Who's there?" She sounded so tired, so weak, so frightened.

"_Yes,_" it came again. A hint of pleasure in it, dark satisfaction. "She will do."

Angered, she gripped the bars of the cage. "Tell me who you are this instant!"

The torchlight vanished with a sizzle.

Something shifted beside her, and she could feel its breath hot against her cheeks, her lips.

"I am your salvation."

The queen screamed.

The voice laughed.

* * *

**A/N: Thanks for reading. Drop a review on your way out if you like. **


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Sorry for the wait. This'll probably be the regular update interval, unfortunately, but for now, enjoy****.**

* * *

"I don't understand," the king said. "It's just a staff."

Jack shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Please don't start again."

"But you really don't have to make such a fuss over it," he replied. Aleksander was attempting to make a tent out of branches and tree leaves and was so far unsuccessful. He knelt over his gathered parts like a master builder surveying a construction and began his third attempt. "You lose your staff, you simply procure another one. They aren't hard to find. In fact, you could carve a new staff right this moment." He threw him one of his branches.

Jack swatted it out of the air. "Mind your business," he grumbled. He added with a low whisper, "This would be less annoying if you couldn't see me."

"Pardon?"

"Nothing!"

He was sitting cross-legged against a tree. After Jack had quit his raging in the tide, they had returned to the ship to gather supplies and possibly any other survivors. They had found plenty of the former and none of the latter. Carrying the materials in a cart they had found in the storage room, they had settled in a clearing within eyeshot of the beach. There, they set out planning their next move.

It was probably the first time Jack had wished such a thing. To be unseen. Most of his life he had struggled with the fact that he was invisible to those who did not believe in him. He was cursed with the urge to have fun but the inability to fully experience it with others. Until Jamie and Sophie (a tug on his heart), no one but the Guardians had ever seen his face.

But being visible to Aleksander – and possibly everyone in this world he was stuck in – did not affect him as much as he thought it would have. Sure, it was strange to lock eyes with another person and see in them not only himself but an _awareness_ of his existence. It was strange talking with, having an actual conversation with, someone else who was not a myth incarnate or Jamie and Sophie Bennett. But right now, with the king chatting away and not really getting why he couldn't just "procure" another staff, he began to wish that maybe being invisible was a lot better than he had previously thought.

"So," Aleksander said. "Are you going to help me with this?"

Jack glared at him.

The king sighed. "I suppose not." He returned to his work.

By the time he had finished, the sun was nearly swallowed by the horizon. A brilliance of colors painted the darkening sky and the surrounding ocean, gorgeous purples and reds and the promise of stars had begun to shine above them. Aleksander had taken some sail canvas and draped it over his improvised tent/lean-to, and Jack watched his silhouette – a gas lamp burned near the opening of the little structure – settle into the damp sheets they had taken from the wreckage and lay down to sleep.

Jack crossed his arms and tilted his head back, eyes closed and wishing he was somewhere else, somewhere that was as unattainable as the desire to be unseen.

"Are you going to come in here or what?"

Jack opened one eye. "Excuse me?"

"There's room for two."

"I most definitely am _not_ going to sleep next to you."

"There's no need to feel ashamed."

"I'm not ashamed," he said. "I just don't share beds with other dudes."

"Oh come now, don't tell me you never had a younger brother who you would play games with in the dark of the night while your parents were asleep."

"Okay, first of all, _gross, _and second of all, I never had a brother. Just a sister." And yes, when the boom of thunder or the howl of the wind had been too much for her fragile heart, he had come to her bed and embraced her until her breath steadied, and she had fallen asleep in his arms. But he didn't say that.

"Sisters are good," Aleksander said, his voice muffled by the canvas. "I have two daughters, you know."

"So you've said a thousand times."

"My younger is the fun-loving one. She loves to play and dance in the halls, even when she thinks there's no one around. My wife and I loved to hide around the corner and watch her leap and prance about, pretending to play with a snowman or fanciful things like that. Of course, she's much older now, but that spirit still lives within her. I can see it every time she laughs, or when she smiles at me."

"You've had the whole day to tell me this…" Jack grumbled to himself, putting a hand over his face.

"My eldest is a different story," Aleksander continued. "She bears too much on her shoulders for one so young. She has suffered much, yes, but I see in her a great ruler. A great queen. Still, I miss her smile, so radiant and free, every bit the delight we see in Ana…"

Jack thumped his head against the tree. "That's pretty great, your highness, but some of us need to actually sleep here. So could you do me a favor and shut your trap?"

A beat.

"Well forgive a man for reminiscing over his children after having lost everything he holds dear."

The acid in his voice did not go unnoticed, and neither did the tremendous grief. Jack's annoyance quickly withered, and he began to regret his words. It had been selfish to assume he was the only one on this beach who had something to mourn. People he had loved that he would never see again. He rubbed his face, trying to find a way to apologize.

"Look," he said. He wrung his hands together, not knowing what else to do with them without his staff. "I'm sorry, man. That was rude of me."

There was a heavy silence. The tropical night breeze shifted the leaves and forest grass and the waves slid atop the sand matching the beat of Jack's heart. He thought the king had fallen asleep when finally there was a grunt of acknowledgment.

"Apology accepted."

"Thank you."

"Although I have no idea who you are and how you came to be here, I do know that you have lost something precious as well. A staff, maybe, but I can see that it is more than that. I can see it in your eyes. Deep in the depths of your soul is a pain that I can relate to."

Jack swallowed. "Yeah…"

"Wherever you come from, wherever your place of origin, I know that you miss it dearly, as much as I miss my beloved Arendelle. Loss is a bitter draught. So as two castaways, two fellow men, two brothers in grieving, would it be fitting from this day forth to call each other friends?"

Jack nodded. "I think I'm okay with that."

"Then goodnight, my friend."

"Goodnight…friend."

By the time Aleksander was snoring, Jack was still wide awake, watching the ocean churn beneath a starlit night. Hours he must've sat there, thinking about the past and what it meant for him to be stuck on this accursed island. He thought about the man who slept not a few yards away that had called him his friend.

Jack blinked, and he felt something wet slide down his cheek. Must be the salt in the wind, he thought. Wiping his face, he settled down by the tree and surrendered to sleep at last.

**XXXXX**

When he woke up the next day Aleksander had started a fire.

He was fanning the flames with a torn piece of cloth as Jack grumbled and rose from his spot. The king's uniform hung from an improvised clothesline between two branches, and he wore only his breeches and a loose cotton shirt. He noticed Jack and nodded. "It's a fine morning."

Jack looked out to sea and felt the breeze rush past him and watched the waves roll under another golden sun and clear blue sky. "Yeah…"

"The fire will act both as a way to warm ourselves and cook our food and as a beacon in case a ship passes by." The king stood from the little burning flame, placed his hands on his hips, and stared at the sea alongside Jack. "I'd rather not search for my wife in this damned bush alone."

Jack gave him a side-long glance. "You still think she's alive?"

"Of course I do. She will remain alive as long as I have hope," he said. "Of that I am certain."

Jack shrugged and wiped his waking eyes. "Alright. Whatever you say."

Aleksander nudged him on the shoulder. "Will you help me?"

Jack thought about it for a moment. He'd known this man for all but twenty hours, never mind his wife. Did he really have an obligation to help him out? Searching for a woman who was most likely dead in the middle of a mysterious, hot jungle that wasn't even supposed to exist in waters like this did not sound like fun. Not at all.

But apparently they were friends now. Jack knew friendships weren't formed like an alliance, with a few words or a signed contract, so were they really friends like Aleksander had said? Probably not. The previous night's conversation had an undeniable weight to it, however, and if Aleksander had given him his full trust, would reciprocating that trust not be the next logical step?

Jack sighed. "You know what? Why not?"

Aleksander's face broke out in the first real grin that Jack had witnessed. "Good man."

Jack made a disgusted sound deep in his throat. He walked away from the king and began to walk into the underbrush. Aleksander frowned. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to find some food!"

If Aleksander had any complaints, Jack wasn't going to hear them. You got yourself into this mess, Jack, he thought to himself. You have to deal with the consequences. "Yeah," he muttered. "But that doesn't mean I have to like it."

As he walked further away from the camp and the beach, the air began to grow hot and humid, and soon enough, his jacket and pants were sticking to his skin and his hair was plastered over his sweating face. He cursed and swatted at the vines and leaves that were in his path. He had managed to scavenge some bright berries that appeared safe and edible, but there were no meat-packing critters to be found. Jack heard them, he heard them chirping above his head and hooting in the trees, but did he see them? They were too elusive to mistake visibility.

It wasn't that Jack was a bad hunter. In his other life, before he could do the things he did now, he had to hunt in order to provide food for not only himself, but his little sister. He knew when to be quiet, and where to place his feet in case his prey walked by and into an easy range. But the animals here seemed to consciously know where he was, like he wore some repellant and they could not get within a hundred yards from him. The whole thing was enough to drive him insane.

Jack rested against a tree and wiped his glistening forehead. "It's not like you know what you're going to do once you get one, Jack," he said to himself. His breath was heavy in the close, abominable air. "Haven't killed a beast in centuries, you fool."

There wasn't a need. Being an immortal winter spirit meant not having to drink or eat to live. Jack wondered about manifesting a razor-sharp icicle and throwing it into the base of an animal's skull, but there were a variety of reasons why that wasn't going to happen. One, the hot air would probably melt the thing mid-flight. Two, he didn't know if he still had the heart – or lack thereof – to kill a living being anymore. When he hunted all those ages ago, it was for necessity. Now, he didn't need to kill for food. He didn't need to kill anything. It went against his very nature. Killing wasn't supposed to be fun.

But there was Aleksander to worry about. Unlike Jack, he needed sustenance to stay alive. And if he couldn't find food, the king could starve to death.

And if he truly was his friend, Jack was not about to let that happen. And if that meant he had to hunt for food, then so be it.

There was a commotion, and he looked up into the canopy of the forest as leaves rained down on his head. A brightly-colored bird was perched on a branch not ten feet above him. It tilted its crested head and regarded him with calm black eyes. It cooed and fluttered its spotted wings. Jack stared at the bird for a while, frozen. Here was his prey, right before him, vulnerable to attack, but could he do what needed to be done?

Jack closed his eyes and opened his palm. Slowly, an icicle began to form, a few inches longer than a pen. He waited until the tip was razor-sharp, and then he gripped the cold tool in his hand and looked up once more. The bird had moved, but its back was turned, baring its vulnerability to the world, and it was the perfect time to strike.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

He threw the dagger of ice and the bird fell.

Jack approached the animal and crouched where it lay. A pool of blood already flowed from the wound just below its vibrant crest. He smoothed the feathers of the bird gently, caressing it as it died. "Thanks buddy," he said to it as its chest rose and fell one last time.

As Jack retraced his steps to the camp, this time with a bird the size of his forearm, he was surprised at how exhausted he was. He'd been hot and sweating but fine until he killed the bird. He stopped, panting, and tried to conjure up another dagger in his hand. The icicle coalesced, but much slower this time, and it felt as if the act was draining his energy at an exponential rate. He frowned. This wasn't right. This wasn't supposed to happen.

Jack tensed and jumped in the air but weariness overwhelmed him and he fell back to the earth with a groan. This was definitely horrifying. He couldn't even fly.

So apparently his powers were limited in this strange, alternate reality.

…Damn.

He couldn't even fly.

And the fact that he was missing his staff made it worse. He knew, unlike before, that it wasn't so much the source of his power as it was a conduit, but it still assisted him greatly when he needed to freeze things or spread some fun. But he had lost it to whatever strange chaos that propelled him here, and without it, his powers were even more severely diminished than when it was with him.

Jack watched the ice begin to melt in his hand and for the hundredth time that day he wondered why everything had gone so completely and utterly wrong.

**XXXXX**

Aleksander's eyes widened when Jack walked back into the camp. "What on earth is that?"

"Brunch, your majesty," Jack said and threw the bird onto the sand by the burgeoning fire. Aleksander winced. "Less horror, more gratitude."

Jack returned to his tree and dozed while the king set about skinning the bird with a hunting knife they were able to procure from the wreckage and set it on a spit above the fire. Jack woke from his nap when the smell of freshly-cooked meat tickled his nose. He opened his eyes and arched an eyebrow approvingly when he saw the hunk of meat roasting on the stick.

"That doesn't look half bad." He sniffed the air and walked over to the fire. "Smells okay, too."

Aleksander grunted. "It will do."

Armed with utensils and a remarkably-intact plate from the ship, Aleksander cut into the flesh of the bird and started to eat. Halfway into his third helping, with bits of slightly burnt skin on his cheeks and lips, the king looked at Jack. He was fiddling with the edge of his hooded sweater, distracted and clearly not willing to partake in the meal. Aleksander cleared his throat and Jack jumped.

"What?"

Aleksander swallowed down his food and gestured to the fire with his knife. "Eat."

Jack eyed the food. "I'm good."

"You must be starving."

"Nah, I'm not hungry."

Aleksander scowled. "Eat, young man." He jutted his chin at the second plate. "I insist."

Jack sighed. "I can't."

The king was offended. "It isn't a royal banquet, but its fine meat, for fowl. I cooked it the way my father taught me."

"I know, but…It's just that…"

"What is it?"

"I'm vegetarian."

The king frowned. "You're not serious."

"I swear."

"Huh." Aleksander regarded him for a moment. Jack did his best to keep a straight face, or else Aleksander might think he was lying. The last thing he wanted was the man forcing cooked bird down his throat because he needed assurance that it tasted good. After a tense moment, he resumed eating. "No matter. There is plenty of edible vegetation, if you know what to look out for. I myself am not familiar with this bush, so sadly you are on your own."

Jack shrugged. "I'll manage."

Aleksander finished half the bird in one sitting and after removing the bones and attending to the fire and spit, he joined Jack by the tree and both stared off into the blue afternoon sky.

"You know what?" Jack said, his eyes following the pull of the waves.

"What?"

"We don't have water."

Aleksander grimaced. "Ah. That is a problem."

"No kidding." He snorted. "'Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink'. That old fart was right."

"That's clever. Did you pen that yourself?"

Jack thought about telling the truth, but he figured that if he really was in some alternate world, it wouldn't matter if he committed copyright infringement on good old Coleridge. "Yep."

"Interesting. Morbid, but interesting."

They sat in silence. Jack had no issues with water, but Aleksander was a different story. Again, they weren't exactly best buddies, but he had no interest in watching this man – this king – slowly die of thirst. Not while he could do anything about it.

"You stay here," he said, rising and brushing sand off his trousers. "And I'll go look for fresh water. There's bound to be a pond or creek nearby."

Aleksander stood. "I'll accompany you."

"You should probably watch over the stuff."

"The last time you left I was bored beyond belief. Besides, I need to stretch my legs." He walked over to their pile of belongings and wrested a small bag and his weapon Daemon from the clutches of damp bed sheets. "And if I come across any of those savages, I will be more than happy to exercise my sword arm."

They ventured into the deep underbrush the way Jack had taken an hour before. Jack had memorized the route quickly and in the case they got lost, all they had to do was find one of his remembered landmarks and they would be able to find their way back to the camp. But getting lost was not so big an issue as the unbearable heat. Soon enough both were slapping reaching vines and branches away and gasping and sweating profusely. Aleksander wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve. "This damnable humidity. I have not been this exhausted since my days as a prince."

Well I haven't been this exhausted since I was three hundred years younger, Jack thought bitterly but kept the comment to himself. It would take him a while to get used to this newfound vulnerability to exhaustion, but if he ever wanted to find his way back home, he would have to. But do you even want to go back? To go back to the hell that made you leave in the first place?

Jack lapsed into a depressing silence as his companion scurried the forest floor looking for a trace of water. After an eternity the king stopped and Jack nearly bumped into him. "What is it?"

"Do you hear that?"

Jack strained his ears and finally heard the cheerful babble of running water. He smiled. "It should be up ahead."

They hurried deeper into the forest and reached a little brook that cut a path through the oppressing underbrush. Aleksander knelt by the brook and cupped his hands into the water. He brought it up to his lips and took a long sip. He moaned in delight. "Ah," he sighed. "It's good to finally quench your thirst. Quick, drink up."

Being a vegetarian was a desperate cover, and it worked, but there was no plausible reason to abstain from drinking water. Jack bent over and drank the water for the king's benefit, pretending to relish the taste. Aleksander reached into his bag and took out a canteen. He started to fill it up. "It's good that we have a source of water so close to the camp," he said. "I suggest we make water runs every few hours. Unfortunately, I was only able to get two canteens from the ship, so these are all we have." He tossed Jack the other from his bag. "So make sure not to lose it."

Jack caught the canteen and frowned at it. "Alright…"

They filled the canteens and made it back to camp after much cursing and tripping over grasping roots. Jack sat by the sand while Aleksander tended to the rest of the bird in preparation for dinner. Jack was watching the waves, but he could feel Aleksander glancing at him every now and again. Out of concern, no doubt, since he hadn't seen Jack have a bite to eat ever since they'd met. Jack rolled his eyes and chewed on the berries he'd gathered earlier for Aleksander. He grimaced at the sour taste but chewed on. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the tension on the king's shoulders relax.

Jack felt uncomfortable under Aleksander's concern. He wasn't used to being cared for, at least in a parental manner. Jack wished the king would stop watching his every move as if he was a delicate marble bust, or anything fragile like that. He could take care of himself.

The next day proved very much the same, with equal amounts of boredom and kingly annoyance. Jack managed to catch a squirrel, and he watched Aleksander munch on the roasted carcass for what seemed like hours.

"Meat is good," the king said between chews. "Especially when cooked. This squirrel is no delicacy, but the taste of good singed protein knows no equal. Vegetables are important, yes, but one needs a balanced diet in order to achieve maximum health." He swallowed a mouthful and offered a leg to Jack. "Here, it's delicious."

Jack glared. "No thanks."

"Just have one bite."

"I'm good."

"I promise you, you will not be disappointed-!"

Jack left the king to once again rest on the white sand, his toes tickled by the approaching tide. His thoughts roamed far and wide, over the gently rolling sea, past the horizon, and into the world beyond the realm of this reality and once there they ran amok. The memories of the tragedy were still stuck on his mind, on his heart. Every time he saw the blue of the sea he remembered the blue of Sophie's eyes, and it took all he had not to lapse into overwhelming grief again.

Why had the Man in the Moon sent him here? Here, out of all places. Here, instead of the death he desired. This strange island in this strange new world. Jack wondered if it was punishment. He had broken his oath as a Guardian to watch over the children of the world and spread merriment and fun the moment he decided in his heart to give up his own life. Was this island where he was to seek penance for this sin? Would he never be able to set foot outside this place ever again? Or maybe, Jack thought with dread, this was all in his head. All of it just a convoluted imagination his brain had concocted in the last few seconds before death, and any moment now it would break like a mirror and he would finally be able to rest.

Jack groaned and rubbed his temples in frustration. None of this worry was helping him. The longer he languished in self-pity was the longer he would have before he managed to find his way home.

If there was a home to go back to…

Jack erased the grim thought. He was here, and at the moment, this reality was all that mattered. If he was going to survive, he had to learn.

Aleksander arched his brow as Jack walked up to him. "If you're craving some meat there are some scraps by the supplies."

Jack shook his head and sat by the fire pit, the flames now a sinuous trail of smoke rising above the trees and into the endless expanse of heartbreaking blue. "I'm not here for the meat."

"What is it, then?"

Jack smiled.

"So where are you from again?"

And they talked on and on for the rest of the day.

A gibbous moon waxed high above them in the night, clear and yellow and glorious amidst the veil of cloud and stars. Jack had learned much of the land of Arendelle from King Aleksander. It was a beautiful country, one of majestic mountain ranges capped with snow. Crystalline lakes whose fish was the largest and most delicious in the region and great icy fjords that spanned for miles. As Jack listened, and as the sun fell and the moon rose, he was entranced by the words of the king. Never mind the regression of time – everything seemed to be set in some version of the 1800s – he had lived through that era and he would live through it again if it meant he would be able to go back home. But even so, the nostalgia and love in the voice of the king inspired in Jack much of the same.

"It sounds like a great place," he said as both lay on the sand next to each other and gazed at the firmament above. The king had taken off his shoes and he had laughed, a full uproarious bellow from the belly, when the tide had tickled his toes.

"It is most wonderful, Jack," Aleksander whispered. "Arendelle is my home. When we find my wife and the rest of the crew I will take you there. You'll get the finest suite in the castle, and you'll dine with us as musicians play and sing their songs and every night I will take you to the balcony and show you the city in the twilight, with the lamps glowing by the streets and the trade ships returning home on gentle winds. And in the morning I will have Ana open up the gates and show you around the town below, and there you will smell the crispy odor of freshly baked bread, and the sharp tang of the fish market, and all around you will be the voices of my people, and it will be like a song, a song that is good and beautiful and it will surely lift you up and take you home…"

**XXXXX**

The warriors called him the Moon Child.

When they first saw the young man with the strange clothes and skin paler than the palest outsider they had captured, many could scarcely believe their eyes. His hair was the purest white, the color of silky moonlight that was so at odds with the fierce, dark hues of the forest. The hunter-warriors would crouch under the safety of a palm tree while the Moon Child walked with the Pretender King by the tide and sat by their meager campsite in the clearing.

When they told their master of this alien figure he had laughed with such delight as they had never seen before. They were ordered to put aside their spears and rest for the time being, and this had confused them. Why rest when the two outsiders were unaware that they were being watched? Was it not appropriate to take them as they stumbled like blind men in the forest, or to slit their throats while they slept? But when the men had suggested this their master's smile vanished and fear like ice gripped their hearts.

The three who spoke up were immediately put to death, and after that there were no more suggestions.

So the painted man crouched by the bushes and watched the two intruders leave the beach and retire to their clearing, the Pretender King to his tent and the Moon Child to his tree. He was not twenty yards from where the Moon Child rested his head, and his spear arm twitched. It was hard to resist when prey was this close, but resist he shall. He feared few things in this world, but the thought of drawing his master's fury chilled him to the core of his soul.

Their master had said there would be no need to capture them, for they would come to him. If not for the woman, then for safety. They were not the only dangerous things on the island, and eventually the two would be driven further inland, and there they would discover the master and his people.

But for now, they would simply wait.

The painted man melted back into the shadows, his body disappearing first and then his eyes, charcoal eyes that bore hate and greed and a malice that was not just his own but another's, another who lived in the lowest valley and was the True King of the island, and soon everything, even the mysterious Moon Child, would be forever his.

* * *

**A/N: Things might be confusing, I know, but I'll explain later on. Liked it, hated it, whatever, review anyway **


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: It's a bit short. I'm trying to pick up the update pace, so these could be the average length from now on. But things change, so we'll see. Enjoy.**

* * *

"Ouch!"

"For God's sake, man, lift your sword!"

Jack scowled and threw his weapon down. "I don't want to do this anymore."

Aleksander sighed. He stuck Daemon on the sand and leaned against it. A light sheen of sweat covered his face. His blonde curls fell over his face, and he brushed them aside and fixed Jack a stern look. Despite his weariness, the king had not looked so animated in days. "How many times do we have to go over this?"

Jack kicked at the sand and frowned into the midday horizon. "I'd rather carve a new staff than do this."

Aleksander rolled his eyes. "Well you refused to do that countless times, so now we are doing this. You need a way to defend yourself, and by divine providence, Robert's cavalry saber was left to us after he was taken. You might as well learn to use it."

When Aleksander had walked out of his tent earlier in the morning he had surprised Jack by throwing him the first mate's saber. It had nearly eviscerated him, but he managed to catch it just in time. Aleksander had unsheathed Daemon and gestured to the beach. "Come. Let's spar."

"What?"

"Since you don't have your precious staff I must teach you to fend for yourself."

And with the imperious air only a king could possess, he'd walked Jack to the beach against his will and proceeded to beat the living daylights out of him.

Jack blew his fringe of white hair out of his eyes. "I'm embarrassing myself."

Aleksander took a deep breath and readied his sword once more. "You're a beginner. That is common. Now, again."

Jack cursed in his head but complied, bending over to pick up the sword. While he was bent over an idea popped in his head and he smiled.

Aleksander cleared his throat. "Up, Jack. Quickly now, you would not want to be-"

Jack leapt up and threw the sand he had collected in his hand at the king's face. Aleksander sputtered and stumbled back with a cry. Jack took his sword and swatted Daemon away from Aleksander's grip. The king recovered just in time to feel cold steel on his throat, and Jack's eyes dancing with merriment. "I win," he said, his chest heaving but still smiling like a fool.

Aleksander's face darkened. "That was…"

"Not fair?" Jack moved the sword away from the king. "Oh come on. You just told me to do whatever it took in order to win a fight."

Aleksander spat some sand that had gotten into his mouth and glared at him. "We were only sparring. There was no honor in that tactic."

Jack scoffed. "Oh whatever, your highness. Tell you what; in order to make up for it, I'll be your manservant for a couple of years. You know, shine your shoes, prepare your meals, and tend to your aching muscles. Oh wait, you've got a whole castle full of people who do those things already. My bad. I'll try to think up of some other way to regain your beloved honor."

Aleksander frowned. "I've exiled people who spoke in a better manner than you."

Jack looked down and exhaled heavily. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yeah, well, seeing as that we're pretty much stuck on an island in the middle of nowhere, there's not much you can do with me is there?" He sighed. "I'm sorry I'm being difficult with you. It's just…I'm not used to this whole thing."

Aleksander walked over and clasped his shoulder. "I understand. That staff must've been quite dear to you."

Jack blinked furiously as tears of frustration threatened to well out of the corner of his eyes. "It was all I had for a long, long time. It's practically a part of me."

"A piece of your soul."

"Almost all of it."

Aleksander nodded. "I'm sorry. Once we return to Arendelle I will marshal all my forces and have them scour the earth in search of your missing staff. I swear it on my honor as king."

"You're awfully positive that we're going to make it out of here in once piece."

Aleksander chuckled. "Of course we will. You don't think the same?"

Jack shrugged. "It'd be great if we did, but the future isn't looking so bright."

They sparred for another hour by the ocean, their swords ringing clear in the tropical afternoon. After that, they settled by the fire and Aleksander munched on another squirrel (Jack's hunting luck was increasing by the day) and sipped on some cold water.

The king wiped grease off his chin and regarded Jack. "So who was the first king of Arendelle?"

Jack snorted. "That's easy," he said. Over the past two days Aleksander had begun to tutor Jack over the history of Arendelle. This sort of thing, he was happy to admit, he was much better at. "King Adrianus I. He seized the country from the savages and drove them up north."

"And the dragons," Aleksander interjected, chewing on a strip of brittle squirrel skin. "Don't forget the dragons."

Jack gave the king a look. "Well, there's a point where myth and actual history diverge. There's no such thing as dragons." At least I hope so, he thought. While it was true from where he came from, anything was possible in this weird reality. Oh sure Jack, he thought to himself drily, you'll believe in a giant talking bunny and Santa Claus's two real-life yeti assistants but you won't believe in dragons. Funny.

Aleksander shook his head. "Maybe now, but back in the days of my fathers, friend Jack, dragons could be seen flying over the open seas every day." He fixed his gaze on the distance, lost in the past. "In the castle, there is a secret room that can be opened when a certain wine barrel is moved at a certain angle. Hanging above an ancient altar is, I jest you not, a dragon skin."

Jack raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms. "A dragon skin. Really."

Aleksander continued matter-of-factly. "King Barnabas the Eagle-Eyed slew it on the peak of the North Mountain ages ago with Valiant, his great battle axe. Would you like me to tell you the story?"

Jack sighed. "Alright, humor me."

"It was seven hundred years ago when King Barnabas ruled Arendelle. In his time, dragons ruled the skies, and they would raze the countryside with their fires and capture livestock from the villages and farmsteads." Aleksander flapped his arms up and down and hissed imaginary flames from his mouth. Jack snickered at his antics. "There was one in particular that pestered the country the most. It was called a Night Fury, and although smaller than some breeds, it was the fastest, and its breath was like hell-cannon that incinerated anything in its path. Its skin was dark and it could camouflage itself in the night sky," he waved a squirrel leg at Jack. "Hence the name."

"Yeah, I got that."

"Anyway, King Barnabas grew weary of the dragon and how it was interfering with the construction of the castle and took it upon himself to rid his beloved country of the Night Fury. He took three of his sons and rode to the North Mountain, where it was rumored that the dark dragon nested. They climbed and climbed, and eventually they made it to the top, but the dragon was ready for them."

Aleksander suddenly stood and swiped his hand at the air, the squirrel in his other hand. "Whoosh! The dragon swooped out of the night and blasted one of Barnabas's sons into smithereens before they could do anything about it. Shocked and horrified, the king and his sons nevertheless took up their arms and did battle with the dragon."

"Must've been a short battle," Jack mused.

"Hardly. They all bore shields of the hardest Corona-forged steel, and Valiant itself was crafted in the heart of a volcano in the southern isles. They were light of foot even in the snow, and his eldest, Prince Douglas, wielded a great longbow whose arrowheads were of dragon claws, and his aim was true."

Aleksander finished his meal and sighed contently. "But the Night Fury was no easy game. In the end, only King Barnabas remained, his sons reduced to steaming piles of slag." He threw the bones aside. "The Night Fury flew in for the kill, its shadowy maw open to unleash hellfire on the brave king. But through whatever miraculous blessings followed him that fateful day, Barnabas sidestepped the beast at the last moment and drove his terrible axe down upon the Night Fury and ended its life once and for all." Aleksander smiled proudly at Jack. "And there you have it. The 100% true account of King Barnabas and the Dragon."

Jack held eye contact with him for a few moments; the only sound the breeze and the oncoming tide.

Both burst out laughing simultaneously. Jack was doubled over on the ground, clutching his belly, and Aleksander was on his back, tears slipping from his closed eyes. Jack kicked sand at the king. "You," he said between gasps. "Are full of bull, aren't you?"

Aleksander sat up, wiping his eyes and chuckling. "For a moment there, I thought I had you."

"It was a pretty good story."

"My mother would recite it to my siblings and me by the fire every night before we went to bed. She was a great storyteller, and I would imagine the flickering shadows on the walls as the dreaded Night Fury and brave King Barnabas doing battle on the North Mountain. Those were happy times."

"I'll bet." Jack frowned and looked at him. "Is there really a dragon skin in a hidden room in the cellar?"

Aleksander leaned back and pursed his lips. "It's been a castle rumor for centuries. I could not tell you how many of my teenage years I spent trying to locate the hidden switch with my companions. I nearly got lost in there on several occasions."

"Have you tried looking for fake walls and such?" Jack had spent some time in a Scottish castle in the 1700s and he would watch countless shady characters and/or mischievous couples sneaking about and accessing hidden hallways. "Or levers behind paintings, or turning a suspicious looking barrel switch?"

Aleksander nodded. "Everything and more. Arendelle Castle is full of hidden secrets. In my personal study is a hidden vault where my family has kept all its booty from conquered enemies and battles. And it is rumored that in the dungeons below the castle is the laboratory of Claudius the Nefarious, the sorcerer who was temporary ruler of the kingdom after poisoning his brother." His eyes twinkled. "We'll roam the halls with my daughters when we return. Like the old days, in the days of my youth. I have forgotten how much I miss those days."

"You're not old, dude."

"Maybe. But I most definitely am not young." The king frowned. "And what is that peculiar word?"

"What word?"

"Dood." He stressed the _oo_ sound, and hearing the awkward pronunciation almost made Jack lose control once more. "I have never heard it in all my years."

"It's just another word for, like…like a companion, or just another guy."

"So what are the exact parameters for naming someone a 'dude'?"

Jack scratched the back of his head. "To be honest, I've never really thought it. It's just something you say from where I'm from."

Aleksander leaned forward and reeled him in with the bait, eyes bright. "And where are you from, now that you bring it up?"

Jack returned his look. Sneaky little rascal, he thought with begrudging admiration. "Somewhere very far away."

"The Eastern Continent, perhaps? I've heard the people there are strange of appearance and wear even stranger clothes."

Jack shook his head. "Farther."

"The Cold Lands of Ice, then. You are paler than a baby's bottom, like the sun has never kissed your face. In all seriousness, friend Jack, you look like a corpse."

Jack scrunched up his face at the comparison. "Screw you, and no. Farther."

Aleksander was exasperated. "Then surely you are from Beyond the Western Waters, where the seas are uncharted and the lands unknown."

Jack shook his head. "No dice."

The king ran a hand through his luxurious blonde hair (a fact that Jack would tease to no foreseeable end) and sighed. "I've wondered about your origins ever since I first laid eyes on you." He fixed on Jack a gaze that was both stern and pleading. "Will you ever tell me where you are from?"

Jack crossed his arms and looked away. "Maybe…"

If he had to be completely honest, Jack wasn't quite ready to open up to anyone at this point. For starters, if he told Aleksander the truth, he might think – no, he would think – that Jack was deranged and/or a lunatic and their ties would be broken almost instantly. Not only that, every time he tried to verbalize his past and how he came to be here, his throat would close up and his eyes would burn with unshed tears. Jack was willing to do many things, but weep in front of not just another guy, but a king? His pride would not allow him that vulnerability.

Aleksander watched Jack go through his internal musings with narrowed eyes, in his own head deciding whether he could fully trust this enigma that was Jack. He was a good young man, there was no doubt about that, although quite crass at times, but all young men were like that. Aleksander, when he was his age, was no exception.

"Well," he said, rising and dusting himself off. "I don't know about you, but I am parched. I'm going for a water run. Here, give me your canteen."

Jack reached into his supplies and tossed Aleksander his canteen. The king hefted the two containers, grabbed Daemon, and walked into the forest, humming some slow tune all the while. Jack watched him go until the forest concealed him from sight and returned his gaze to the horizon, lost in thought.

**XXXXX**

Aleksander sipped on the water of the brook. It was sweet on his lips and even sweeter down his throat, and he moaned in delight at the long-desired quench. It was strange how much he craved water recently. Never mind the fact that this was a humid tropical zone (impossible considering the route they took to Weselton. This had plagued his thoughts ever since he'd awoken to see the bright green flora on the borders of the coast), the accursed place seemed to drain the very life out of him. Even sparring with Jack – no easy task considering how lame-footed the young man was – made him exhausted beyond belief. The sooner he left here the better.

Aleksander dipped his canteen in the water, his thoughts straying far and wide. He thought of how he was going to find his wife and the rest of the crew in this damnable forest. Despite his show of bravado in front of Jack, he was less certain of her survival than what he put out. Even if she survived the long fall from the crack by the rock, the savages were not a gentle people like the Trolls or the other tribes of snow in the old places of Arendelle. They were brutal and bloodthirsty and if any of the crew had put up too much a fight, Aleksander had seen them take their obsidian blades and slit the crew member's throat. He shuddered to think of what they would do to her if she was indeed alive and captured.

Finally, he thought of his kingdom, and more importantly, his loved ones. His daughters. His everythings. Their faces swam into view in his mind's eye and he nearly wept right then and there. Remembering them and what they went through as a family always managed to break his heart. When he was certain Jack was either asleep (which he did not do much, peculiarly) or not paying attention, he would allow himself the luxury of tears in dedication to Anna and Elsa.

He wondered where they were right now. Were they oblivious to his fate? Was Anna playing in the courtyard and defacing the portraits for the thousandth time? Was Elsa in her room, practicing the mantra he had devised for her powers – her curse – and blocking out her sister's pleas to come out and play? Or have they already received the news that the _Sea Stag_ never made it to Weselton's port, and their parents were almost certainly dead?

Were they mourning them at this very moment?

Aleksander finished filling the canteens with a heavy heart. "Damn it all, Aleksander," he said, berating himself. "Keep your chin up, like father said. While your heart beats and breath remains in you there will always be hope. You are a king, so start acting like one."

Aleksander stood, packed the two canteens under his arm, and turned.

And instantly froze.

The animal that crouched not ten yards from where he stood was not in any scientific treatise on global fauna or any encyclopedia he had ever read in his years of schooling. In fact, he was certain it technically did not exist until this moment, and as he stared into its speckled ochre eyes he thought to himself that the beast most likely did not care whether it was discovered and classified or not. It resembled a great cat, a panther of some sort, but much larger, bigger than a man if it stood on its hind legs. Its fur was pitch black, but dotted with irregularly pale white, and two fangs jutted from its huge mouth bigger and thicker than his middle finger. A long white tail moved lazily behind it, and its dark snout twitched as it sniffed this potential morsel before it.

Aleksander dared not move.

He dared not even breathe.

Instead, he slowly and carefully moved his hand to his side, where Daemon was strapped, so near yet an eternity away. The cat's eyes tracked the infinitesimal movement, and its upper lip curled. A hiss began deep in its throat, a horrible scratchy sound that raised the hairs on the back of the king's neck.

_Move, you fool._

_ Move before you're dead._

The cat roared so loud the leaves trembled and it leapt.

Aleksander gripped Daemon's handle, withdrew the cold steel from the scabbard, and lunged.

**XXXXX**

The roar shattered Jack's daydream like falling hail on glass.

He jumped in surprise and knocked his head against the tree he was resting on. The winter spirit cursed and stood, rubbing the ache on his skull. "What the hell was that?" he muttered.

"Aleksander?" he cried, peering into the forest. "You there?"

The roar had sounded nearby, near enough to be heard. It resembled a tiger, or any other big cat, and the thought of something as large and predatory as that prowling by their campsite sent a shiver down his spine. He pictured Aleksander walking alone in the forest while a huge feline stalked him in the long grass, its heart intent on killing him.

Jack took up the saber and ran into the forest, his breath hitched. He'd have been surprised at how terrified he was for Aleksander if it weren't for the fact that his heart was trying to exit his throat. He leapt over logs and bushes and cut away reaching vines, desperately hoping the worst had not occurred.

When he made it to the brook he was greeted by a horrible sight.

Aleksander was slumped against a tree. From where Jack was he could see the terrible red blossoming through his white shirt. Daemon was discarded by the running water, its blade stained with a darker red, not of any human origin. Jack rushed to Aleksander's side.

"Jesus," he breathed. Three identical cuts ravaged the king's chest, spanning from his left collarbone to his lower rib. He was bleeding in other places: a cut on his thigh, a warm wetness behind his shoulder. A bruise was already beginning to form on his whitening cheek. "What happened?"

Aleksander's face was pale and his voice weak but he managed to speak. "Damn cat," he gasped. "I managed to land a few good hits in before it got me. Battered me around for a while before it ran off." He tightly shut his eyes. "God it hurts…"

Jack wiped his hands on his sweater and licked his lips nervously. "Alright," he said. "Okay. How are we going to do this?"

"Carry me back to the camp," Aleksander said through clenched teeth. "There is a medical kit in our supplies. Lift me up."

Jack nodded frantically and gingerly placed his shaking hands under the king's arms. "Okay. One, two…" he braced himself. "Three!"

He lifted the king. Aleksander screamed.

"I got you!" Jack yelled over his cries. "Don't worry, dude, I got you."

A vein bulged in the king's neck as he continued to scream. Jack began to carry him through the forest, trying desperately not to drop him. If he did, he did not know if he would able to lift him again. His body seemed numb with fright, and he was moving only by adrenaline and reaction. There was no conscious thought in his head save for getting this man to safety as soon as possible.

When they made it back to the camp Jack carefully laid the king down by the sputtering fire. He had grown quiet midway to the beach, but his brow was furrowed and sweat glazed his pained features. Jack made sure he was still breathing and then hurried to the pile of supplies, throwing everything that did not resemble a medical kit aside and searching desperately for anything that did. "Come on," he hissed. "Where the hell are you?"

He finally found a medium-sized metal container with a green cross emblazoned on the front and ran back to Aleksander, who had one dark, wet eye focused on Jack.

"Now what?" Jack said, opening the kit and staring dumb-founded at the contents. His voice was shaking, like everything else he possessed. "What do I do?"

"Get the needle, forceps, thread, and bandages," Aleksander wheezed. "You are going to…" he grimaced in agony. "You will suture my wounds for me."

"What?"

"JUST DO IT!"

Jack hurriedly removed the king's shirt and flinched at the massive wound. Blood was leaking from the trio of cuts. His flesh was ravaged like torn cloth, its ends torn and red. The cat's claws had opened up the man to the bone. He took the needle, a wickedly sharp thing with a holder, and slowly held it against the wound, his fingers trembling.

"Alright," he said to himself. "Calm down, Jack. You can do this."

Aleksander cursed as another bout of pain wracked his body. "Are you ready?" he groaned.

"As I'll ever be."

"Grasp the needle by the holder at the distal portion of the body," the king began. "Hold it tight, man, or else you'll cut me open even more. Incorrect placement will bend it and you'll end me here."

Jack nodded and prepared the needle.

Aleksander eyed the tool, both dreading and needing its sharp metal touch. "Set it at a ninety degree angle while you hold my wound open with the forceps. Now," He was breathing heavily now. "Enter it in my skin and follow everything I saw exactly how I say it. Ready?"

Jack closed his eyes and nodded again. "Ready."

"Do it."

Jack inserted the needle into the king's skin and began to thread while Aleksander screamed and wept and cursed until the fated dying of the day.

**A/N: Thanks for reading. Drop a review on your way out.**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Thanks for all the kind words! Here's the next chapter.**

* * *

The sun had set when it was all over.

Aleksander slept next to the warmth of the fire in a bundle of blankets and clothes and anything Jack could find that was sufficient to comfort the king. His cuts were properly sutured and bandaged after hours of torturous treatment. Jack lost count of how many times his shaking fingers had nearly bent the needle and his heart had almost stopped. It was miraculous that Aleksander had not passed out during the impromptu first aid, because without his words of guidance to help Jack he would have certainly died. But the moment it was over he dropped like a rock and entered a feverish sleep.

Jack placed a wet rag on his forehead and proceeded to watch him until night fell. He stared blankly at his friend's sleeping figure, his back turned to the ocean. His eyes were haunted with a new kind of pain now, one that was not for himself but for someone else who was now more than deserving of his care.

The thought of Aleksander dying scared him more than it should have. It downright terrified him. Almost a week he had spent with him and only him on the beach of the island and as much as he hated to admit it, they had grown close. Maybe not like brothers, but he no longer was annoyed by the king's presence. In fact, he quite enjoyed it. Loneliness and loss had forged between them a tie unlike any other.

Jack did not know if he could take another death again. If Aleksander succumbed to whatever sickness ravaged his body now, he was certain he would lose his will to live forever.

He rose and walked over to the beach. There he hoped the tide washing over his bare feet would calm him. He crossed his arms and frowned, eyes closed, praying to whatever deity was out there – or even the Man in the Moon himself – to heal and restore the ill king.

"If you're out there," he whispered. "Please help us…"

Naught but the rushing waves and night wind answered back, and its answer was a sigh, like the gods had regretted ever making this pathetic pale little thing on the little island in this forsaken corner of the world. Jack opened his eyes, but no longer was there sadness and desperation.

Only a silent fury.

"Fine," he said. "I'll take care of it myself."

Jack stalked back to the camp and double-checked on Aleksander. After tucking the blankets over his sleeping form, he began to feed more sticks into the fire until it doubled in size and it brightened the clearing as if a pocket of daylight had manifested there. Jack set about making more fires, but instead of in the center, he formed a ring around their camp, a circle of fire that blazed light into the darkness of the forest. If any beast decided to make their move on Aleksander's prone figure, the flames would make them think twice about it. He moved the king a few feet away so he would not overheat and picked up Daemon (he'd recovered it from the brook after attending to the king's wounds).

Something ugly was brewing in Jack. Something he had not felt in a long time. It was a dark, hideous cancer that began in his heart and seeped into every fiber of his body until it consumed him and his every thought was obsessed with it. It did not simply reside in him…it became him.

It was hatred, and Jack was full of it.

He leapt over the ring of fire and sprinted into the underbrush. The branches would whip against him and the rough bark of fallen trees would nearly splinter his feet but he paid no heed to the pain. He rushed by and even reached into his power and glided, but the exhaustion that inevitably came did not bother him, and he was flying through the forest, towards the brook, toward the dried blood on the wood and leaf and stone.

And he felt it. He felt it waiting by the waters as if destiny had compelled its instincts and driven it there to the scene of the crime. And sensing its presence stoked the fires of the hate in Jack's chest and he flew ever faster.

He made it to the brook and landed by the rushing water. His breath was heavy, and he had already begun to sweat, but weariness had not enveloped him yet. Not while the beast stood on the other side of the brook, watching him with its eyes like molten amber.

It stood like a shard of night amidst the darkness, a separate part of the whole. The cat seemed to be waiting there for a while, and it eyed Jack like one eyes a late dinner guest, part accusation and part eagerness to feed. A hunger that burned in its gaze and burrowed into Jack like an ocular parasite. Its frame, all muscle and sinews and glistening fur black as tar, was hunched and tense, like a slingshot waiting to be fired. The cat's fangs gleamed in the sliver of moonlight that illuminated the area.

Jack unsheathed Daemon and the cat's eyes flickered to its shining blade.

"You remember this, don't you?" he said. He held the sword aloft, and the cat's lip curled as if in remembered pain and disgust. Such a human reaction from a beast. "You remember its bite. I can see your scars."

Indeed, on its giant chest was a criss-cross of raw wounds, still unhealed from hours before. They looked open and new and blood still leaked from the scarred flesh. The cat was weaker than before, the pain of the king's swings still fresh in its memory. Even so, Jack would have to be careful.

He took a deep breath and gripped the handle of the saber with both his hands, like Aleksander had taught him. The beast regarded this with a twitch of its snout, a flicker of its whiskers. _Steady your heart,_ the king was telling him. _Your sword hand here, other hand here. Good, Jack. Very good. Now, I am going to attack. I am going to lunge at you and you have to try your best to defend yourself. In the heat of combat there is precious little time to strategize. In the battle between skilled foes there is no prolonged duel. It is fast, it is bloody, and it is over soon. There will only be one victor, Jack. There must only be one._

_ Don't think._

_ React._

Jack narrowed his eyes at the monster that had hurt his friend and his heart beat in his ears and it was the only thing in his vision. The only thing that mattered and he was going to kill it for what it did to him.

The cat screamed a demon's scream and its muscles bunched like the heavy pistons of an engine. Jack tensed as it launched into the air, over the water, and down upon him. He did not think. He reacted. Jack rolled to the side, pointing the saber skywards and slicing down as he did. He was rewarded with the resistance of flesh against the tip of Aleksander's sword and a yowl of pain. But when he finished the roll and snapped his head up, the cat was already on the move.

It barreled into him like cannon. He felt the air rush out of him and its weight was unlike anything he had ever felt. Like the combined despair of the world was atop him. It was over him and its great maw opened up before his eyes and snapped shut. It tried biting at his throat, but he pressed its forearm against its throbbing neck and held it back. Its claws dug into his shoulders, his back, and pain exploded as each tip seared hell into his skin. The cat's eyes were not a foot away, and something like malice raged in the ochre pits. Like Jack was not just food but its sworn enemy.

It opened its mouth again, much closer to his neck this time, and hot saliva dripped onto his face and nearly blinded him. For a moment, true hopelessness gripped his heart, and he almost let the cat close its teeth over his throat, but remembering Aleksander shivering in the heat of his fever by the fire awakened in him once more the resolve to live and fight.

Jack roared his own defiance and pushed with all his might. The cat snarled and scrambled back, surprised by the resistance. Jack was on his knees now, and he swung Daemon with a wild cry. The cat leaped nimbly back and crouched a few yards away, safe and unfortunately alive. Jack was on his feet in an instant, in extreme pain but unwilling to let the cat know its prey was weakening.

They circled each other for a moment. The combatants assessed their opponents, noting the bleeding cuts and heaving chests and weighing their opportunities to strike again but this time to deal the killing blow. When he killed the beast, Jack intended to roast it alive and eat it for dinner, feeding portions of its meat to Aleksander for strength. He was certain if he lost he would end up the cat's dinner as well, so why not deliver its just desserts?

The cat moved while Jack was lost in strategy. It nearly ended him then and there, its huge paws moving like black quicksilver in front of him. Jack dodged the swipes, thanking the Man in the Moon for once for his inhuman speed, strength, and stamina. He feigned a cut to the left and the beast fell for it, batting at the empty air and realizing too late its mistake. Jack skipped forward and brought the blade down on the cat. Daemon flashed in the moonlight and hewed into the cat's hind leg. The cat screamed in agony and shook away from Daemon's bite, spasming like a possessed being so as to escape the blade.

Jack did not let up. He sliced again and again and Daemon sang in the night wind, and it was a song Jack was beginning to understand. This was not a battle. This was an ancient rite between man and beast and it was as old as the earth beneath their feet and paws and the trees that watched in silence around them. This was blood spilt on holy ground and the act occurring was a sacred one. Nature's ceremony of primordial war and the taking of life for the continuance of another. For all of Jack's hatred and feelings of revenge they were a small portion of this cycle that had sustained itself for countless eons and it would continue to turn after the cat and Jack were long gone.

But Jack intended to send it to oblivion first.

His strikes were rewarded with the resistance of flesh against the sword once more. The cat screamed again, the cut just above its eye and already blood was seeping from it and threatening to blind its vision. Spurred by pain and rage, the cat quickened, and another swipe caught Jack on the thigh. It was like a warhammer against his leg and it downed him almost immediately. He hit the forest floor with a dull thud like a falling stone. The gritty, pebbly sand was strangely warm on his cheek, and he realized a split second later that it was his own vented blood that heated his skin.

But before the cat could pounce him again Jack rose with everything he had left, and he screamed from the pain, but he would not be at its mercy anymore. He lifted his leg and bashed his foot on the cat's head wound as it prepared to jump. The cat squirmed from the blow and swiped at its own head as if to purge itself from the pain. While it was distracted, Jack took up Daemon and, with a two-handed grip over his head, brought it down with a roar.

The blade opened up the cat's jugular. Blood like ink in the night spilled from the injury like an unholy geyser. The cat reeled away, all of its feline strength and cunning dissipated like a pinch of fingers over a candle flame. It stumbled backwards, its hind legs deep in the rushing brook.

The sudden weakness of the beast was contagious. Sensing victory, Jack's adrenaline retreated, and he begun to feel the pain of his wounds. _Damn it,_ he thought as he fell to his knees. His body was unwilling to support itself. The cat watched him, and it snarled. It tried to approach Jack, but the blood would not stop flowing. It mixed with the water of the brook and it ran its course like a dark stain against the purity of the flow. The cat's legs quivered, and the fire in its luminous eyes was beginning to extinguish itself.

Jack locked gazes with it, and it was then that he knew it was going to die.

The animal opened its mouth to roar, but it had no strength left to do so. Instead, its eyes rolled back into its head, and its legs gave way. The body that bore old and new scars and hunted this forest for seven long years fell into the brook with a loud splash. A child of the island returned to the nothingness of its becoming.

The black cat was dead.

Jack had won.

Daemon dropped from his trembling fingers. The breeze never felt so cold. As his knees lost strength and he fell to the earth he thought he could hear the pulse of the island's heart and it was comforting.

He did not see the figures detach themselves from the embrace of the forest and approach his body. He did not feel their rough hands as they took him by the shoulders and picked him up. He did not know that they were taking him in the opposite direction of the camp and into the lowest valley.

All he knew was that he was tired, and that it was a very good idea to fall asleep.

So he did.

**XXXXX**

_He knew it was a nightmare when he opened his eyes and saw the Hill before him._

_ The sled discarded at the foot of the great mound. The scarlet stain of blood on the snow._

_ And Sophie's broken body spread-eagled like a ragdoll._

_ Jack stood just a few yards away. He tried to look away but he could not move. The sight of Sophie would've driven him to his knees if he had control over his body, but the nightmare had its own rules, rules Jack was compelled to obey._

_ "Oh Sophie," he whispered. Tears fell from his eyes and down his cheeks, tears the nightmare was happy to allow. "I'm so sorry…"_

_ The dream shifted. The children and parents from the camp surrounded him now, and in their eyes was an accusation that bore a hatred greater than the eyes he had closed forever by the brook. Each stare was a hundred-ton block of granite on him, and he wanted to dissolve into the snow, but the nightmare needed him to suffer. It needed him to relive this moment because he had taken a life, so the memory of death must act as a punishment for his crime._

_ So be it, Jack thought. Let me suffer._

_ He thought he could take it, but when he felt a presence beside him, and the cadences of voices he knew all too well, something broke inside, and he knew he would never be able to get over the pain._

_ "You could have saved her, Jack," North said. His gruff voice bore such disappointment. "You could have saved Sophie. Saved this wonder of the world from an early grave. The girl did not have to die."_

_ "But you let her," said Toothiana. The beat of her tiny wings brushed his ear like an angry wasp. "You abandoned her and crushed her and her memories will never be mine to collect and never be yours to savor."_

_ "If I'd known it was you that left her there I would've killed you by the statue when I had the chance," Bunnymund almost spat. The back of Jack's neck tingled, and it was as if the Easter Bunny's boomerang hung over his head like an executioner's blade. "You don't deserve to be a Guardian, mate. You never did. You're hopeless."_

_ Sand like gold dust crept into his vision. It swirled before him, guided by a hand he could not see but knew was there. It coalesced like a tornado, the normally slow formation quickened by what had to be fury. The sand became a sword, a sword Jack did not recognize until the tip of its blade pointed directly at him._

_ "No…" Jack pleaded. "Sandy, wait…!"_

_ Daemon plunged into his heart._

**XXXXX**

Jack woke up screaming.

He screamed out the Guardians' names and begged for their forgiveness. It took him a moment to realize that they would not answer him. They were a world away, and his screams were in vain. He twisted his hair in his hands and forced the clutches of the nightmare to recede into the darker recesses of his mind, a realm where Pitch was not dead, but he ruled with a dark iron fist.

Jack regained control over his thoughts and remembered everything that had occurred. Fixing up Aleksander's injuries. Making the fires. Fighting the black cat by the brook. The memory of what happened after that was lost to him. Now, he was here.

And where is here, he thought?

He was on a bed of coarse sheets made up of animal fur. Walls made up of tightly woven straw covered him from the outside. The room was small, just enough for one occupant, and by his bed was a little log stool. A short torch burned by the door, the only source of light. Frowning, he reached over to take off his blanket, but every nerve in his body screamed in protest. He cursed and lay back, staring up at the dull ceiling of the dwelling.

Trying one more time, he gritted his teeth and ignored the pain, whipping off his blanket to inspect his body. His clothes were gone save for a rough loincloth. His wounds from the battle were covered in thick white bandages. One on his left thigh and a whole sheet of them around his chest and back, covering the claw wounds the cat had scraped into him. His skin was even paler than before, so he must have lost a lot of blood. Blood he had not spilled in three centuries.

He was deep in his self-perusal when the door to the room opened. Jack's head snapped towards it and he tried to get up, but the pain beat him to submission and he fell back on the bed, weak as an infant. A little old man, dark and unclothed except for a necklace of animal bones, wristlets bearing leaves and tiny jewels that sparkled in the torchlight and a loincloth not unlike Jack's walked into the room. White paint decorated his skin, and he had a pestle and mortar in his hands. His black beady eyes regarded Jack blankly.

"Hello," Jack began.

The man walked over and sat on the stool. Jack drew back at the sudden closeness. The man started to grind a dark red substance in the mortar, and Jack was forgotten for a few seconds.

"Could you tell me where I am?" Jack ventured, but the old man ignored him.

The man grinded the pestle into the powder for a few more seconds, and then he stopped and looked at Jack. He grunted and motioned at Jack. Jack frowned. "What?"

The man grunted again and gestured incessantly. After a moment of confusion, Jack realized the man wanted Jack to come towards him. Afraid, Jack shook his head. Annoyance flickered on the man's face. He snapped in a language Jack did not understand and motioned again.

Relenting, Jack sidled gradually closer, preparing to move if the man tried anything funny. The man nodded and stuck his thumb into the red, powdery material in the mortar, chanting slowly in the same foreign language. He took his thumb from the bowl and swiped it across Jack's forehead before he could move away.

"Hey!"

The man then stopped chanting. He stood and said something in a louder voice, and the door opened again. Two bigger men with the same attire albeit with wicked-looking spikes pierced through their nostrils walked in. Jack's mind traveled to the past, and he remembered the band of painted warriors battering the hapless first mate on the beach. Jack was afraid for his life, and he tried to move away, but he was too weak. The men went around the older man and reached for Jack.

"Get the hell away from me!" Jack said.

The men ignored him and took him by the arms with a firm gentleness. Jack squirmed like a limp fish in their grasp, but there was nothing he could do as they followed the old man out the door.

The soft wind hit his bare skin. The sun was beginning to set, and the falling sun bled into the sky and peeked above the trees and into the village Jack had found himself in. Dwellings similar to Jack's, some much bigger, were situated around the large clearing, over twenty in all. Villagers, dark-skinned and silent, watched as Jack was dragged away by the men. Children who were clearly playing before they had exited the hut held their toys and regarded him with young, veiled faces. Jack tore his flagging gaze from theirs and looked forward just in time to be thrown to the ground like a sack of rice.

Pain tore through him as the rough forest floor hit his open skin. He cried out, curling up and protecting his healing wounds with his arms. As he fought the pain, the beat of a drum began.

He looked up to see that he was in a circle of burning torches, and behind the torches was a ring of tall dark men with sharpened spears. They all had the same nose piercing as the men who carried Jack from his bed.

Three wizened old men stood in front of Jack. They were ancient and bent, and their eyes were milky white. They were muttering quietly, their voices rising and falling with each pounding of the drum. The trio wore feathered headdresses and carried wooden staffs, and they stared at Jack with their strange eyes that sent a shudder running through him.

Jack groaned and got to his feet.

And like that, the drum beat stopped.

The lead elder pointed at Jack with a crooked finger. "_Silvagan_…"

Jack narrowed his eyes. "What?"

The men spoke at the same time. "_Silvagan._"

"What does that mean?"

The man pointed upwards. Jack followed the direction of his finger and peered into the darkening sky. "What are you trying to tell me?"

The man continued to point. Jack frowned and stared at the sky for a while longer, and then he understood. Hanging above him, still a faded outline but clearly present and visible in the retreating sunlight, was the moon.

"_Silvagan,_" they intoned once more.

The lead elder's blind eyes widened, and his next words quivered with emotion. "Moon Child," he breathed.

Jack's heart froze for a moment. He swallowed nervously, his throat suddenly dry. "What did you call me?"

"You are Moon Child. You are destined."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

The elder to the right, the shortest of the three, said something Jack did not understand, and the lead elder nodded gravely. "You fall from sky and into water. You come with devil men to this island," he said. "You are Moon Child."

Jack felt uncomfortable under their piercing gazes. He fidgeted and covered his bare torso with his arms. But the sudden rush of gooseflesh on his skin was not just a product of the cool breeze. The connection they had made between him and the moon was eerily accurate. Why they were calling him this name – this Moon Child – was beyond him, but the implications of this were important.

If simple tribesmen like the old men were linking Jack to the moon, did the Man in the Moon exist in this world? Was this his way of reclaiming his Guardian?

"Moon Child," Jack said. He nodded frantically. "Yeah. I am the Moon Child."

The elder closed his eyes and bowed his head. "_Dalik namasó_. The master calls for Moon Child."

"What?"

The two men from before appeared behind Jack and gripped his shoulders. He twisted, but they held tight. He craned his head at the three old men as they pulled him away from the ring of burning torches. "Wait!" he cried. "Please explain what's happening! Why am I the Moon Child?"

But they only regarded him with blank gazes, and they turned away and receded into the dark outside the torchlight. Jack cursed and looked back, eyes burning with frustration. As they pulled him away, they passed what seemed to be large cages. One, guarded by three warriors, was filled with despondent looking men in dirty sailor uniforms. Jack's heart jumped at the sight, and he called out to them. "Hey!" he cried. "Guys! Hang tight, we're going to set you free!"

Instead of excitement, they turned their miserable eyes on him and regarded him silently. Robert the first mate glared at Jack with eyes red from weeping, the unattended cuts and bruises on his face plain as day.

Another cage was guarded by the biggest mortal Jack had ever seen. His face was square and blocky, as if it had been squished between pliers right after birth, and he had a piercing in his nose and instead of white paint, markings the color of blood decorated his huge, muscular frame. He stared at Jack with undisguised malice and spat on the ground.

In the cage was a pale, delicate woman in a filthy dress. Her skin was dirty and shining with sweat and hair that was perfectly cared for and brushed in the portrait in Aleksander's quarters was unkempt and messy. She looked at Jack with sad, dark eyes from the corner of the cage, where her wrist was raw and red from the binding that held her there.

Jack tried to pull away from his captors, but they grunted and held him fast. "Elana!" he said. It was the name Aleksander muttered in his sleep the most, so it must've been this tiny fragile beauty that was imprisoned in the cage unjustly. "Elana! Your husband is alive! He's going to save us, don't you worry!"

Queen Elana of Arendelle only bit her soft, trembling lip, closed her eyes, and looked away.

"Elana!"

Jack was too busy crying out her name that he did not see the men drag him to a great hut elevated on wooden pillars at the edge of the forest. Torches burned around it, and a thatched roof sheltered it from the harsh environment. They held his arms tighter and walked up the carefully carved stairs that led up to the elevated building. Jack's cries died on his lips as he gaped at the complex hut.

The men stopped at the entrance. An image of an ember was etched into the sleek wooden surface of the door. The hunters shared a glance, and Jack caught it quickly enough to see the surprising nervousness in their eyes.

Whatever waited behind that door scared them.

One of the men knocked.

A voice, muffled behind the confines of the hut, called them in.

The hunter opened the door and shoved Jack in. Jack gasped as he fell to the floor and the door shut behind him. He scrambled to his feet and checked his surroundings.

The room was lit by candles. Tiny candles of pearly-white wax that gave off an odor that was unknown to Jack but was sweet to smell even so. It washed over Jack and would have sent him into a dizzy euphoria if circumstances had not been so dire. Shelves were all over the room, shelves filled with artifacts of every kind imaginable. A wolf skull in a large crystal jar. A bronze sundial resting beside what looked like a Venus flytrap but with serrated fangs. The wheel of a ship leaning against the straw walls. A pile of gleaming coins the size of Jack's chest alongside a human skeleton wearing conquistador-like armor and a crossbow.

A man was facing away from Jack. He knelt in front of an altar of bones, candles like organ keys situated in bright rows in front of him. Medallions and precious jewels hung from the altar, and little paintings of beautiful women, like those found in treasured pendants, rested on its surface like the funeral shrine of a great calamity. Kneeling, he was muttering quietly, as if in prayer.

The atmosphere seemed so sacred that Jack was scared to speak up in fear of breaking some hallowed ritual. Instead, he waited for a few moments until the man stopped praying and rose to his feet and turned.

He was not much older than Jack, to his shock. Eighteen, nineteen, or twenty at most. Barely into adulthood yet with the fullness of a man ten years his senior. Skin the color of burnished bronze, curly hair like a waves of glossy midnight, and glittering eyes like darkened sapphires from the belly of the earth. He was more than merely good-looking. He was beautiful. His face seemed of sculpted marble, all sharp cheekbones and supple lips; the likeness of some young desert sultan who ruled over castles and holy temples. He was a head taller than Jack, and he possessed not an inch of extra body fat. Every muscle that gleamed in the firelight was tough and prominent, and dark scarlet tattoos marked his bare chest. The only thing he wore was what looked like sailor's trousers, white and belted with a brown cord and on him it gave him the appearance of an ascetic priest of old, or a disciple of an ancient art long past.

Such perfection was not meant to exist.

Jack was instantly suspicious.

"Hello," the young man said. He smiled, and his teeth were strangely full and white for someone living in a rainforest with a tribe that belonged in a National Geographic documentary about Third World tribes. His voice was lightly accented, exotic and lilting. "It is good to finally meet you, Moon Child."

Jack sighed. The dramatics of it all.

"Yeah," he said. "You wouldn't happen to have any extra pants here, now would you?"

He laughed. It was a rich and full laugh, but the laugh of a man accustomed to being amused and pleasured. He walked over to a drawer next to his bizarre candlelit shrine and rifled through its contents. He moved with an agile, feline grace, every step purposeful and imbued with an eased elegance. A second later he tossed Jack a set of breeches that were exactly his size. Jack put them on and tied them about his waist.

"How are you feeling?"

Jack arched an eyebrow at him. "Crappy, thanks to your guys."

The young man sighed. "They can be a bit rough around the edges. But I was referring to your injuries."

"I feel better," he answered. Now that he thought about it, the pain from the wounds was almost certainly gone. "I'm guessing you had something to do with that."

"Not me. You have our healer, Danak, to thank for your speedy recovery."

Jack remembered the strange old man who had marked him on the forehead when he woke up. "I'll do that."

"What astounds me, Moon Child, is how you were still alive to be treated at all. When _Wana-gan _hunts, he strikes to kill. Rarely is he the one who returns to the island's embrace."

Jack shrugged. "I was angry. Sue me."

He tilted his head. "You have committed no crime. You did what you did in vengeance for the Pretender King's wounds. It's fate was sealed the moment you took up your sword. Such is the way of the island."

Jack felt a flicker of annoyance at the man's name for Aleksander. "What astounds me, whoever-you-are, is how you can speak perfect English and the rest of your people can't."

He laughed again. Jack was beginning to be irritated by the ease of everything that issued from his throat. "Your ship was not the first to crash on this island, Moon Child. I wished to communicate with the strange men who ended up in my forest, so I asked them to teach me their language. I have never regretted it since."

"Yeah? Teach you in exchange for what?"

The man smiled. "It seems we have…how do you say it? It seems we have gotten off on the wrong foot. My name is Ashanagarethanarak." He chuckled at the look on Jack's face. "But you can call me Ash."

Jack pointed his thumb on his chest. "Jack."

"Just Jack?"

"Just Jack," he answered. "Well, it's really Jackafanoffunandstuff, but you can call me Jack."

Ash nodded. "Usually the men who wash up on these shores have second names. It is an indication of their origins, or their inheritance and birthright. It is their tie to home. I find it peculiar and unnecessary, but this is their way." He looked at Jack again with those smoky blue eyes that would've made any female swoon. "But you do not have one. This tells me you lack a home, or have forsaken it. Am I wrong, Moon Child? Is home far away?"

Jack tried to hide the fact that every hair on his body had stood on end. His mouth had lost all moisture, but he swallowed and spoke up. "Not really. I'm more of a drifter, if anything. Enough about me," he followed before he could continue the interrogation. "How about you? More importantly, what's up with this island? As far as I know, there are no tropical isles in waters like these."

Ash's smile twisted. The amiability was gone, replaced now with a chilling cruelty that was the first true glimpse into this deceptively beautiful man's real identity. Jack felt the urge to flinch from the pure negativity that oozed from this man, but he stood strong. "My. Those are interesting questions, Jack. Questions that will be answered in due time. But for now, you must wait."

Jack scowled. "What do you mean?"

Ash called out in the unknown language, and the door opened. The two men strode in and without warning grabbed Jack's arms. Jack glared at Ash. "Hold on," he said.

"It was good talking to you, Moon Child. I'm sorry that our time was so short, but I assure you. We will speak again soon."

Jack struggled as they walked him back to the exit. "Wait! Where are you taking me?"

Ash dismissed him with a wave and returned to his kneeling position by the shrine.

The men closed the door and pushed Jack outside the hut. The sun had set, and the forest was darker than it was by the beach, and all was a suppressive, oily black save for the light of the torches by the village and the path that led to Ash's hut. They pulled him down the steps and toward the cages.

Elana was asleep in her cage. Jack gave her a look of worry but was immediately blocked from view by the huge guard. He crossed his beefy arms and fixed Jack a look of utter hatred. Jack simmered under his gaze and was led to the other cage. One of the guards opened the door with a wooden key and Jack was shoved into the throng of tired and sleeping men.

He landed on one of them and was met with a curse and a kick in the belly. Jack met similar resistance until he finally found a small, wet space by the corner of the cage where he had a little room to himself. He pulled his knees to his chest and rested his chin on them. The sailors glared at him with barely-concealed irritation and distrust.

"What?" he said. "Did I do something wrong?'

He felt a tap on his shoulder, and he looked to his side. Robert was gazing at him with the same narrow-eyed suspicion, albeit with a trace of amusement.

Jack frowned. "What is it?"

Robert the first mate scratched his messy-haired head. "Nothing you've done," he said. "Although your strange appearance disturbs the men. It's just that you've managed to sit yourself down on the toilet."

Oh. So that's why it's so wet, he thought as his stomach did a back flip and Robert pulled a face at the smell.

This was going to be a long night.

* * *

**A/N: Thanks for reading! As always, hope you like it, and feel free to drop a review or PM me on your way out.**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Sorry for the wait. Here's the next chapter!**

* * *

"Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!"

"Hah! I win."

Jack scowled. "What the heck is that?"

Robert smiled and showed him the hand sign. "It's a siege tower, obviously."

"How many times do I have to tell you?" Jack said with a sigh. "It's rock, paper, and scissors only. Just those three."

"Yes, but the siege tower is the logistical culmination of the three tools. Or at least to an extent. So," he said, smashing his siege tower against Jack's rock. "I win."

The other eleven men laughed and patted Robert on the back. Jack snorted, crossed his arms, and looked away from them. The cage suddenly shook, and the men cursed as they were jostled from their positions. They turned and saw the huge guard (whom Jack had taken the liberty to name "Tiny") gripping the bars of the wooden cage with both hands, a violent displeasure set on his misshapen face. He glared at them for a moment before spitting at their feet and plodding back to his post.

"What an ugly man," Robert grumbled once he was out of earshot. "If the way you smelled had a facial equivalent, it would be his."

Jack shoved him. "It's not my fault no one warned me that I was sitting myself on your little pile of excrement."

The sailors giggled like schoolgirls.

Jack rolled his eyes.

"Does everyone enjoy rolling in shit where you're from?" said Agdar, a gap-toothed, shaven-headed man with a true sailor's mouth. "Or is it just a personal preference?"

Jack glared. "First of all, I didn't roll in it, I sat on it. Second of all, from what everyone's telling me about your hometown, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the daily pastime."

Agdar cursed him and turned away. The man was born and bred in the fish markets of Arendelle, by the docks and under the shadow of the castle. A sailor his whole life, it wasn't his first wreck, but it was definitely the first time he'd been captured like this. Most of the other survivors were experienced sailors as well, and all were equally shocked by the sudden storm and the bizarre island.

"Came out of nowhere, it did," said Bror, the boatswain. He was an old, grizzled man whose face resembled a great cliff face by the sea, all hard lines and craggy, grey-haired countenance. "Waves like battering rams, high as towers. The ole Sea Stag never stood a chance against that beast of a storm. Never saw the captain so scared in my life." He smiled grimly. "And when that last wave hit us, I never saw the captain at all."

"And then I wake up, and suddenly it's bright and hot and the sun's shining on me," Colin had remarked. "The beach was as white as can be, and the forest…" He shook his head and rearranged the crooked spectacles on the bridge of his nose. "I'm telling you, there's some sort of ungodly witchery going on here. I've sailed to the Palm Islands and back, so I know a tropical zone when I see one."

"They were huge and vicious and I didn't stand a chance," said Eghart. He was the youngest of the survivors, and the youngest of the crew according to the others. His blond hair hung loosely over a long, horse-shaped face. "I tried fighting back but I was too busy coughing up seawater." He pointed to a scabbing-over scar on his forehead. "This is what I got for struggling. They tied me up and dragged me into the forest and that was it."

"You should have fought harder," Robert had said. Although younger than all of the other sailors in the cage save for Eghart, he had the aura of an older man, experienced and wise beyond his years. Jack wondered what he must have accomplished in order to gain the position of first mate on the king and queen's flagship. "The king might have been lost to us thanks to your cowardice."

Eghart had looked down in shame under Robert's glare.

In the present, Robert looked at Jack. "In all seriousness, we thank you for safeguarding the king while we were bound here. Is he well?"

Jack remembered Aleksander screaming as his wounds were hastily mended and the feverish heat of his skin as he was recovering. "He's…" Jack struggled to find the right words to say. "He's resting. He had a tussle with a jungle cat a while back and he was hurt in the fight."

Robert's eyes blazed, and his back straightened. "How bad were his wounds?"

Jack shrugged. "Eh. They were fixable."

The first mate continued to look into Jack's eyes to detect a lie, but Jack held firm. He grunted and crossed his arms. "The king is the sole ruler of Arendelle and all her realms. If he dies, Arendelle is doomed."

"He's got daughters, you know."

"Yes. A clumsy teenager who swings on curtains and draws on priceless works of art for fun and a white-haired recluse who no one is allowed to talk to for more than ten minutes."

Jack smiled. "White hair, huh? Seems like my kind of girl."

Robert glanced distastefully at Jack's own hair. "I'm sure all of us have heard the rumors of little Princess Elsa. If Aleksander passes, I cannot bear to see someone like her take the throne. King Aleksander is the only man fit to rule, and no other."

Well. Somebody's got a man crush, Jack thought drily. "What's wrong with the princess?"

"There's something off about her," said Eghart. "She's kept hidden in the castle and isn't let out except for festivals, and even then she's on the balcony and never on the streets."

"I heard she has a disease of some kind," said Guido. He was a weasel of a man, short and skinny and always whispering to himself. "Contracted it when she was young. I bribed a maid who attended to the daughters and she told me that she is always in her room, and when she is let out to eat or attend class, she always wears gloves, like one touch of her skin could kill a man."

"Diseased or not, she's bloody gorgeous." said Colin. "I wouldn't mind having a poke at her myself, if you know what I mean."

The boatswain smacked him on the back of the head. "You watch how you speak of the crown princess. Besides, if the queen hears you speak like that she'll have your head when we get back."

Robert stared worryingly at the other cage. "I think the good Queen Elana has more to worry about than Colin being his idiot self again."

Jack glanced at the sleeping form of Elana in the other cage. Despite Jack's attempts to talk to her, she always had her back turned to them, and sometimes when all the others were asleep he would hear her weeping to herself in the middle of the night. Having someone in such a state of despair so near to him and yet he could do nothing about it hurt Jack to his very core. It was against his nature to let another person miss the joys of laughter and fun. He even tried to get her to play rock-paper-scissors with him but the mountainous guard had come and spat in his face.

"What happened to her?" Jack whispered to Robert. "Is she always so unresponsive?"

He sighed. "It is painful to see the queen like this. She is not a very talkative soul – that is more of the king's skill – but I have never seen her so quiet. The first day she had asked us questions and assured us of King Aleksander's return, but it stopped when they would take her out of the cage."

"Why would they do that?"

"I do not know. All I do know is that they take her out every evening and send her inside that damn hut. What goes on in there, I know not. But whatever it is, it cannot be pleasant." Robert's fists were clenched at his sides. "It burns me to know my queen is suffering and I cannot do anything about it. I want to kick down the door of that hut and throttle the man inside."

Jack looked at him. "You've seen Ash?"

"If that is his name, then yes, we all have. He came out to inspect us the second day. I find it bewildering that such a man exists in this godforsaken isle. He seems cultured and refined, unlike the rest of these half-naked savages. He talked of sailing and navigation as if he was a learned sailor himself. It was curiously fascinating. Still, I want to run my sword through his heart."

"Oh, speaking of, I learned the basics of swordsmanship thanks to you."

Robert lifted his brow. "Excuse me?"

"You dropped your sword when you got beat up, remember? Anyway, Aleksander started to teach me how to fight with a sword a few days in. It's harder than it looks, by the way, so I admire you guys for having that kind of skill. You'd think watching Pirates of the Caribbean a few times would be it, but no. There's a lot more to it than that. Especially with the rapier, because let me tell you, that handle is pretty hard to –"

Robert suddenly gripped the collar of his sweater and pulled him close. "First: You refer to the man as King Aleksander. Not Aleksander, not Aleks, just King Aleksander," he hissed. "Second: how dare you say I was 'beat up'? I most definitely was not beat up."

Jack frowned. "Really, dude, because from where I was, it looked like you got your ass handed to you down there."

Robert pushed him away, cheeks flushed. "I was weary from the shipwreck and outnumbered as well. The odds were not in my favor. I would've killed them all if I was in better shape."

Jack snorted. "Okay, man. Whatever helps you sleep at night."

"We do not sleep anymore, Jack," Robert said seriously. "Not with things the way they are now."

The atmosphere grew solemn. Jack wondered what it was like for these men. To have sailed out of the sunny port of Arendelle, from the comfort of their homes and families, proud in their hearts to sail under the royal banner and serve their king and queen, only to be caught in a horrible storm and wrecked on a mysterious island with minimal chance of getting back. Agdar, with his wife and seven children selling tuna and other seafood by the docks. Bror, with his loving daughter who was a barmaid and the sole object of his worry when he was out at sea. And Robert, who, according to the other men, had a sweetheart waiting at home who he was going to propose to once he got back. All violently jarred from their lives by this unforgiving world.

Jack felt for them.

The cage door opened.

Jack tensed as one of the guards poked his head in and snarled in his native tongue. The survivors grumbled and got up, their motions collective and practiced, as if they were used to the process. "What's going on?"

Robert helped him to his feet. "Don't worry, they're not going to execute us. This happens every day."

"What exactly are we doing?"

"You'll see."

All thirteen survivors exited the cage and immediately stretched their limbs. A group of twenty warriors formed a circle around them, their spears leveled and dark gazes filled with disdain. Jack jogged in place. "So what's up?"

One of the warriors detached himself from the main circle and shoved a sheet of coarse linen in his face. Jack backed up. "Whoa there, dude, easy." He stopped and realized there was something drawn on the sheet. He bent forward and peered at it. "What in the world is that?"

"It's what we have to look for," said Robert. In his full height, he stood taller than even Aleksander, who must've been at least six foot. His long black hair was tied into a ponytail with a piece of cloth he'd torn from his shirt. "They take us out at noon to go searching for it in the forest."

Jack stared closer at the drawing. "You'd think there'd be a lot of these in a forest, though."

Robert shrugged. "You'd be surprised. It's been days and we haven't found a single one. But I do not mind. As long as I get to stretch my legs, it's fine by me."

Jack continued to frown at the paper until the warrior got annoyed and tore it from his gaze. He barked at the survivors and they moved as one into the forest. He smacked the back of Jack's legs with the flat of his spearhead and spat. Jack resisted the urge to punch his jaw and moved on.

As they walked into the familiar dense heat of the jungle, Jack began to scour the ground for their target. The illustration was neat and descriptive, obviously drawn by an artistic hand. Jack suspected Ash, and he was most likely right. It was probably him who had ordered them to do this in the first place. Even so, it was good to leave the cramped confines of the wooden cage and get to walk again.

The animals were much more active than they were by the coast. He could hear birdsong ringing clearly, and heavy things were moving above their heads and raining leaves and forest debris down on top of them.

Jack wondered how far inside the island he was. If he was deep in the interior, and this island was as big as he thought it was, the chances of returning back to camp were slim. But, if he was close enough, then he could try to break past the circle of guards and make a run for it.

But where would you go, he thought? You have no idea where you are and even if you did escape they know the area better than you do and you'll be captured within an hour. And don't try fighting back. You're not as strong as you were before this whole ordeal, and what will you do if they bring one of the sailors as a hostage? Or, God forbid, the queen herself. Aleksander would never forgive you.

A creek bubbled nearby, and Jack nearly made a break for it right then and there. Follow the water's course and you'll make it to the ocean, and just run until you find Aleksander. He wanted freedom so bad it was like a physical pain in his chest. But the consequences were of sound logic, and the truth of the matter was that he just couldn't do it.

While he was lost in thought one of the guards stalked over to him and hit him with the butt of his spear. Jack stumbled forward, much to the warriors' amusement. He whirled around and approached the guard, an icicle already in his clenched fist. The guard sneered and raised his spear, and the other men hooted and goaded him on.

Robert and the boatswain pulled Jack back. "Let me go," he said through clenched teeth.

"You make one move towards that bastard and he'll gut you like a boar," said Bror.

"Save your strength, Jack," Robert whispered vehemently. "If King Aleksander really is coming, you're going to need everything you have, but until then, do not waste your life."

Jack shoved them away and walked in the opposite direction. The warriors laughed, but he ignored their jeers and held the promise of Aleksander's rescue in his heart to abate the hatred seething within. The other sailors now watched him with a different gaze. Agdar nodded at him approvingly and Guido looked almost afraid.

The warrior spat and barked another command, and they continued to walk on. Jack muttered curses under his breath and kicked at the foliage. "I hope we never find this stupid flower…"

**XXXXX**

When Elana was a little girl she and her two sisters would huddle under the blankets and whisper to each other the sort of secrets that every little girl desired to know.

They would giggle about dresses and lipsticks and boys like Edmund, the nephew of old Baron Jarmund, and how good he looked as he rode into the castle every morning after a fox hunt. They teased and poked each other and dared the other to go talk to him, to risk a touch of his flowing locks that gleamed like molten gold in the sunlight, or even – and they would gasp and giggle tenfold – chance a small kiss.

They would gossip about their parents and the events in the Arendelle royal circuit. About how Duke So-and-so was having a clandestine affair with Lady something-or-other, or how the queen was becoming more ill by the day and the physicians were beginning to say that she would not make it by winter. They would talk about their parents and how they looked at each other when they thought their daughters weren't paying attention, and how they hoped they would someday know a boy who would look at them the way their father looked at their mother. They talked of all these things and more until the sun was up and they realized they'd spent the whole night enjoying each other's company.

Elana missed those days. Those days when Arendelle was her world entire and there were no such things as treaties, economic policies, or body counts. When banquets were every Saturday and dashing young men like Edmund and a certain handsome prince would finally pay attention to her as she grew taller and her body became fuller and beauty graced her features. When she would dance on the shining floor of the ballroom and she could feel the eyes of every man on her and nothing could bring her down because she was on top of the world.

Days when Aleksander was younger as well and he would sweep her off her feet and together they would rest under sacred starlit nights and know the other with a fondness beyond friendship, and the memory of him kneeling before her by a fountain of stone angels and staring down at his glittering eyes and then and there becoming queen nearly drove her to tears.

Happiness had overwhelmed her that day, but taking on the mantle of queen had changed her.

No longer were there days of beautiful boys and pretty gowns or nights of dancing and drinking. She did not have time for that. She had a country to rule and a king to serve and love. Then came the pregnancy, and her life had changed even more as Elsa was born into the world, and soon after that, Anna. Her two daughters. Her everythings.

She knew that her old party friends still whispered about their queen behind her back. How she was never any fun anymore and being a queen and a mother had done away with her propensity for merriment and she had become quiet and reserved and no longer willing to spend a great amount of time with those outside of her strict schedule.

She knew, but she did not mind.

But separation from Aleksander and her subsequent capture awakened in her an unfamiliar longing for that far-off past, and she would weep more often as the days went by.

A few hours after noon the sailors returned from their daily search, and the flash of white roused Elana from her position in the cage corner. The strange young man who had called out to her the night of his arrival locked eyes with her as the sordid group approached their prison. Such innocence in those eyes, she thought to herself. Not a naïve one, however, for in that piercing blue was a brokenness that Elana now understood, a sense of grief and mourning that came with the loss of something precious. It was an optimistic innocence, a belief that no matter how hard the times there was always a glimmer of hope, a shaft of sunlight through the storm clouds of despair. It was in his voice when he had cried out her beloved's name that night, a youthful hope that had nudged her soul and promised her salvation.

But no.

He was not her salvation.

The thought of Aleksander nearly drove her to tears once more. Oh how she hoped he would not come, as his new friend had declared. She did not want him to see her like this. So dirty, so foul, so unclean. She repeated her desires in her head in an endless loop until the sun was hanging on the precipice of the world, and darkness settled over the little village clearing. The cage door rattled, and Elana knew it was time.

She was led out of her cage by the gigantic guard. She was now used to his rough hands and his unrelenting pull as she was almost dragged towards the hut. She heard the new prisoner – Jack, he had told her when he still believed she would respond – cry out her name and beat against the cage bars, but thankfully Robert and the others restrained him before the savages could beat him into submission. She was dutifully silent, for the first time they had taken her she had cried out, and the guard had hit her on the mouth with the back of his hand. She still bore the bruise of that punishment.

He led her up the steps of the hut and knocked on the door. The voice – that damnable voice – called from inside his abode, and she was thrust inside immediately. The door closed behind her, and for the fifth time she found herself in the presence of the being who called himself Ash.

He stood before her, hands clasped behind his broad back, his great body gleaming in the candlelight. He was again in front of his otherworldly altar of bones, like the guardian to some cultish temple. The light played over the perfection of his features, dancing over his skin and giving him the aura of a god that ruled over the island and all within.

He smiled, and his teeth seemed a little sharper than normal.

"Hello," said Ash. "Would you like to dine with me tonight?"

Elana stiffened. She was prepared for his usual megalomaniacal monologues, had steeled herself against them, but an invitation to dine? It was not usually the first words out of his mouth.

Ash noticed her tense up, and his smile softened. "No more tricks, my queen, I promise. Just a little dinner, that's all."

Elana shook her head.

Ash frowned. "Oh come now. I prepared it myself. You'll absolutely love it if you give it a try."

He motioned to a small, scarlet-clothed table that had not been there the previous night, or any of the nights before for that matter. He pulled her chair out like a perfect a gentleman and offered his hand. "I insist."

Elana hesitated. This was the first time he had initiated any sort of formal communication. The first night he had introduced himself, speaking with a graceful, eased cadence even as she screamed for help and slammed on the door with both of her fists. Even as she took a rusty machete from one of his peculiar shelves and nearly decapitated him. He had only grabbed her wrist, disarmed her, pushed her back against a wall, and continued speaking as she wept and struggled to free herself. The nights after that were more of the same, although she had only slumped against the door and funneled his words into the oblivion of her mind as he talked on and on until he called the guards in and they returned her to her cage. In truth, she could not even remember what he talked about – only brief mentions of some damn prophecy – because the whole time the faces of her family was fixed in her mind's eye and there was nothing that could deter them from her thoughts.

Ash watched her patiently, his face blank of any emotion save for polite expectation. Elana did not know what to think of this abnormally beautiful young man who lived in a hut in the middle of the jungle. He obviously ruled over the primitive tribe that had captured her, but when and how was a complete mystery. He might have said so in his long ramblings, but of course, she had not paid much attention. And the fact that she did not care to listen irritated her more than anything in that moment. "To rule well is to listen well", her mother used to say when Elana was preparing for her coronation.

Her annoyance at her failure to heed and the memory of her dear mother spurred Elana to action.

She nodded.

Ash's smile brightened. "Good. Have a seat."

Elana slowly detached herself from the door and walked to the open seat with as much queenly dignity she could muster. She walked with her head held high and her arms relaxed at her sides. She would not allow this strange man to see the weakness she had shown all the other nights before. His dark blue eyes gleamed with open admiration as she came forward and gently sat on the wooden chair. As she lowered herself onto her seat, he unexpectedly rested his hand on the slope of her shoulder, and she froze. His touch was warm on her bare skin, his reaching fingers electric and sizzling and the feeling of them was uncomfortably pleasant. He leaned forward, and his breath was hot on her open throat, just below her ear.

"I'm sorry about your dress," he whispered. His voice and his breath reminded her of the night of her capture, and the voice that had greeted her upon arrival at the village. She quivered under his grip, the memory evoking fear in her and the realization that these terrible voices were one and the same. "We will get you changed soon enough."

He released her, and she could breathe again. He went around the little table and sat down, the same gentle smile on his face. He gestured to her plate. "I know you're hungry. Eat."

She looked down on her plate. There was roasted meat, most likely some kind of boar, coupled with bright green leaves sprinkled over the meal, and a bowl of steaming stew to the side. Ash waited expectantly. "Go on."

Elana picked up the polished fork and knife that were rolled in a soft napkin. She hesitated for a moment before slowly cutting into the meat and picking up the tender flesh with her fork. She lifted it to her mouth and took a bite. The sensation of cooked meat on her tongue exploded in her mouth, and she closed her eyes and relished in the taste. Ash quietly watched her chew.

"I take it that you like it?"

Elana could bear it no longer. To hell with queenly dignity, she was starving. She viscously tore into the meat, much to Ash's delight. In under a minute she had finished everything on her plate, and then she moved on to the stew. She disregarded the wooden spoon to the side, wrapped her hands around the bowl, and gulped the hot stew down, uncaring of that fact that it burned as it swirled down her throat. When she was finished, she gasped and sat back on the chair, chest heaving and lips scalded. She took a moment to recover, carefully wiping her lips with a handkerchief provided by Ash. And all the while he studied her every move with a curious, narrow-eyed gaze, as if bewildered by this pale-skinned beauty devouring her food in front of him.

"It's been too long since I have dined with a beautiful woman," he said, still staring at her. Elana paused in her movements to fix him a look of suspicion. "Truly," he followed; hand on his bare chest, just above his heart. "I enjoy your company. It's good for me, I think. The presence of a true lady does wonders to those of a more fiery constitution."

"Why are you doing this?"

The sound of her own voice astounded Elana. It was not the voice of a queen, but the weak, dry-throated croak of a wretch of a woman, one who had abandoned all hope and lost all notions of optimism. She was disgusted by it. If her husband had heard such a voice he would be equally, if not more disgusted. Aleksander IV of Arendelle did not marry a woman defined by her weaknesses, and she did not believe herself vulnerable to despair. Not anymore.

She straightened and cleared her throat. Ash noted the sudden change with a raised eyebrow.

"I asked you a question."

Ash smiled. "And I will answer it. But let me fill my stomach before you continue your interrogation," he said. The man forsook utensils for his hands, and he picked at the meat with fingers used to the method, precise in the way he tore apart the meat and the vegetables. "You know," he said between swallows. "I'm beginning to think you were faking that weeping mute routine in order to prompt me to feed you."

Elana frowned. "Do not change the subject."

Ash lifted his hands in surrender. "Forgive me." He finished up his meal and wiped his hands with a dark red cloth. "I have a nasty habit of diversion." He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, and Elana continued to stare at his eyes in fear of glancing at the way the muscles of his arms were sharply defined in the light of the fire. "You were saying?"

Elana's frowned deepened.

Ash chuckled. "Again, sorry. I did not realize how stern an individual you are. Are all Arendelle women like this? I think I'll have to have conversations with a few more of your men to find out."

"Please answer the question."

Ash sighed. "Alright, then. But I apologize if you find the truth disappointing." He smiled, and he looked almost embarrassed. "Would it be too shocking to think that I just enjoy your presence? That I wish to prolong it in fear of the loneliness I've known for far too long?"

Elana shook her head. "It's more than that. I know it is." She liked the sound of her voice now. It was confident, assured. More like the Elana from before. "When you first had me here you spoke of strange things. Of…prophecies."

He tilted his head. Stray dark curls fell gently over the softness of his eyes. "Did I now?"

Elana scowled. "Yes. I remember it clearly."

Ash rubbed his jaw. "That's very strange. Very, very strange indeed." He matched her frown, and he looked just as confused as she did. "Prophecies? The only prophecies I'm aware of are the religious cycles of my people, and we both know how ridiculous those are. We civilized folk know better, don't we?" He winked at her. Elana did not like how he constantly joked with her. His youthful charm was dangerously unmistakable.

"I thought you said no more tricks, Ashanagarethanarak."

Ash's eyes widened and he let loose a great laugh. He clapped his hands and the sound was like thunder in the smoky closeness of the hut. "So you remember my name after all. I find that heartwarming. Well, since you know my name, it's only fitting that I know yours."

Elana stared blankly at him.

"To be fair, when I questioned your men, I asked only for your occupation, not your name. And honestly, my queen, I care more about knowing you then recognizing your crown."

She thought about it for a moment. In the end, giving her name would do her less harm than what she initially imagined, for her name was just words, and it did not physically tie her to him in any way. But even so, the words of her mother once again came to mind. "Names have power, my dear one," she had said as she brushed her hair and helped make her beautiful for her husband. "Names are identity, and identity is the key to your soul." But there was something about the innocent plea of this man, this man that had been gentle with her and treated her with a delicious dinner and sweet words, that beckoned her to relent, and relent she did.

"Elana," she said. "My name is Elana."

"Elana," he whispered. He seemed in a holy rapture as he repeated it, and the words rolled off his soft, full lips with saccharine leisure. "That is a beautiful name."

She averted her gaze and tilted her head downward a fraction to hide the fact that her cheeks had burned when he said her name with unabashed emotion. No man but Aleksander had infused such delicate care in the invocation of her name, and no man but he had ever stared at her with such brazen longing. She would have been disturbed if it were not for his odd aura that compelled her to constantly give him the benefit of the doubt, to see the best in him where suspicion would usually reign. It was damnably annoying but she could not help but submit to it. And the worst thing was she knew that he knew it.

And there was nothing she could do about it.

**XXXXX**

When Elana was gone, Ash carefully set up the table. He placed the plates and utensils in a basin beside his altar and washed them with a bucket of river water until they were free of their stains. He stacked them atop each other and gently set them on one of his many shelves and went back. He folded the napkins and tablecloth and set them down on one of the chairs. He returned to the basin and poured water into a small silver bowl, which he carried with him like a ring bearer to a wedding altar.

Once he was finished, he went to a corner of the room and pushed aside a wall of hanging, multi-colored beads. Behind them was a door which he opened and crossed over into the mild night air. He walked down the steps of the hut and immediately three guards came rushing out of the darkness to attend to him. He waved them aside and barked out a command, and they bowed and returned to their previous posts. They understood that their master needed to retire to his place of rest, and refusing the order would mean instant death.

Ash walked into the surrounding forest and followed the path he had beaten into the underbrush long ago. It winded down, down, down where the valley of his people reached its lowest point and the shadows of the trees grew darker and darker, and the sounds of birds and other animals became faint and then none sounded at all.

He walked until he reached a glade where the grass was long and a single twisting tree stood in the middle of the verdant spot of the forest. Ash surveyed it for a moment, like he had always done since he had first laid eyes on it all those years ago. Then, he strode into the sea of wavy green that rose and fell under the caress of the night breeze and stood under the shadow of the tree. There, he knelt, set the bowl down, and cupped his hands around the treasure that grew out from between two sinewy roots like throbbing veins in the skin of the earth.

Motes of wondrous light drifted from the golden flower that shone like a little star at the feet of the tree. Ash stared at it with the same awe in his eyes as when he had come gasping and bleeding into the clearing that first twilight, and the flower had blazed with the fire of a conflagration in his fading vision. He gently stroked one of its glowing petals, and he felt power surge into him from the touch. Ash licked his lips, eager to begin, but he knew he must cleanse himself before partaking from the wellspring of life before him. He took the silver bowl, still kneeling, recited the prayer his father had taught him, and slowly tipped its contents down over his head. The cold rejuvenated his senses, the sudden rush of gooseflesh causing a smile to appear on his face. He placed the bowl down and furiously rubbed his hair. He scrubbed and scrubbed until the black dye fell off and dropped onto the ground or floated away.

Ash breathed in a sigh of relief and let his true hair, hair red as the heart of a burning fire, blow back in the gentle evening wind.

Fully cleansed of all secrets and lies, he knelt back down over the golden flower and placed his hands over its glowing entirety.

And he began to sing the words that had appeared in his head when he first laid eyes on the treasure below him, words that bore no explanation but seemed so right to say.

"Flower gleam and glow," he crooned. "Let your power shine. Make the clock reverse; bring back what once was mine."

The wrinkles around his eyes disappeared. His lips grew fuller, his cheeks tightened, and his dark skin retained its exuberant, youthful pallor. What once was became what is, and for him, the world righted itself to the perfection of his preference.

"Heal what has been hurt, change the fates design, save what has been lost, bring back what once was mine."

Ash smiled.

"What once was mine…"

* * *

**A/N: Now how about that? ;). Drop a review on your way out!**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Another!**

* * *

_Aleksander dreamed that the world was engulfed in ice and fire._

_ Because this was in the realm of sleep, he was not tethered by the bounds of gravity and physics, so in his fevered dreamscape he could fly, and his body was translucent and faint, like the white silk curtains in his old bedroom that would flutter softly when Elana opened the windows to let the cool breeze come in on late spring afternoons._

_ He drifted over Arendelle, or what looked like Arendelle. He recognized every fjord, every snow-capped mountain, every lake and inlet, because he had seen them all and touched them with his bare hands, but they were different now. Different because the whole of his kingdom was set in freezing ice. Arendelle was frozen as if in the deepest winter imaginable, and he flew alongside harsh frigid winds that bore hail and snow and moans like wailing mourners at a wake._

_ This is not right, he thought. This is not my home._

_ But his worst fears were realized when he topped the North Mountain – a great ice slag was frozen on its uppermost slope – and drifted on and on until he reached the frozen bay, and there he saw the castle._

_ And the horror raging below it._

_ Great warships plowed through the ice, metal spikes sectioned below the figureheads driving into the frozen surface of the bay. They numbered in the hundreds, perhaps the thousands, for Aleksander could not see the end of them beyond the murky gray horizon. Vicious purple lightning flickered amongst clouds dark and angry, the beginnings of a furious storm howling like banshees in a cemetery, and many warships broke apart with a crack like the thunder bellowing about them and plunged into the ocean waste. But they plowed on, and they came ever closer to their destination, both harried and borne forward by the rushing storm winds. Aleksander circled around, his heart hammering in his chest. Snapping atop the masts of each ship were the flags of countries both friend and foe of Arendelle, and fury surged in his chest when he recognized the Weselton Navy flagship at the lead of the vast array of nations._

_ The Duke! It had to be him! The treacherous weasel always envied the prosperity of their sister country Arendelle. So maybe he had forsaken the diplomatic pleas and launched his navy against them in anger. But despite how hard Aleksander needed that to be so, he knew something was amiss. There was the flag of the Coronan Armada right alongside Weselton, and other nations, like the Austerland Confederacy and the Southern Isles, all loyal to Arendelle and suspicious of Weselton. What had occurred to draw these nations together in an alliance against Arendelle?_

_ He needed to understand what was happening. He flew down to the bay, where infantry was already amassing for an attack. Siege towers were pulled forward by groaning beasts of burden, huge and wooden and filled to the brim with soldiers armed to the teeth. Catapults stationed by the ships were already hurtling blazing rocks at the citadel, and more were being wheeled forward to deal out more death and destruction. Soldiers numbering in the countless thousands climbed down ladders from ships or marched out of wooden ramps pulled from the belly of the deck. They gathered on the solid ice and grouped into battalions, companies, platoons, etc., their spears and muskets leveled at the lonely castle. Great formations of cavalry charged across the icy plain, the horses nervous and skittish yet ridden with a furious intent, the kind of intent bred by the fires of war and hatred. They marched and rode as one – a coalition of nations bearing war torches and spiked standards– towards the frozen ports, where a battle was already taking place._

_ Aleksander watched with horror as the army of Arendelle made their stand against the forces that outnumbered them twenty to one. Barricades of ice solid as rock stood firm against the charging foes, and the men of Arendelle knew how to defend their own keep, but there was only so little they could do against such a massive attack. They were faint amidst the shrieking of the coming storm, but the king could still hear the screams of dying men as the armies clashed in a mess of steel and blood. Aleksander floated closer, and in the center of the slaughter he saw his friend King Antony of Corona wielding his great broadsword to great effect. The bearded king let loose a stentorian battle cry as he led his men into the fray and cut down Aleksander's men by the dozen._

_ This is wrong, Aleksander repeated. This is not happening._

_ Aleksander flew past the carnage and into the villages surrounding the castle. Anarchy ruled over the people, and men, women, and children ran about in terror of what was to come. Fires had already erupted in the town, and looters rioted in the streets and rampaged through unattended stores while families either rushed north to flee the impending massacre or cowered in their homes and whispered silent prayers. Aleksander's heart tore for their despair, but he flew past even them in order to get where he needed to go._

_ He flew up and up until he reached Starpoint Tower, the highest point in Arendelle Castle. There was no mistake that this was the source of the chaos that had engulfed his home. Heavy winter clouds circled around the tower in a cyclone of ice and death, and lightning struck the tip of the reaching edifice and tore through brick and stone like the vengeful fingers of electric gods. The wind here howled the loudest, and it was so deafening that Aleksander did not at first hear the scream. But as he drifted closer and closer to the epicenter of the storm he noticed a figure standing behind the open window._

_ It was bathed in a cold blue light like the heart of a glacier, but around its edges glowed a deep, blood-colored red, harsh and malicious and unfeelingly cruel. The figure's mouth was wide open, and as it screamed he could see the feminine curves underneath the intense, burning light. It was a woman, and the woman wore a beautiful dress of glittering ice and a string of frozen diamonds around the pale curve of her bared throat. Aleksander peered into the window, disgusted and fascinated at the abomination overlooking the battlefield. She was unlike anything he had ever seen. Like an ice goddess from ancient times, when man was hunted and not the hunter, and beings out of storybook pages ruled the earth with strange and unknown powers._

_So stuck in his awe, he did not realize that the woman of ice was not screaming, but laughing, until the light was erased by the swipe of hand and a delighted cackle._

_Aleksander's heart froze._

_No._

_In the name of all that is good and holy, please no._

_Queen Elsa of Arendelle threw back her head and laughed. Her blonde hair, so blonde it was nearly white, cascaded down her open back in shimmering waves, and the entirety of her beauty was nearly enough to distract Aleksander from the havoc below. She laughed and laughed and the storm above her continued to rage, but as her laughter increased, so did the storm. Suddenly, lightning struck the tower and enveloped the world in a blaze of blinding light. Aleksander continued to stare wide-eyed at the scene before him, uncaring if the light blinded him or burned his eyes out of his sockets. All that mattered was that his daughter – his Elsa – was the cause of the bloodshed and sorrow in Arendelle._

"_Elsa…" he said. This is my child, he thought with dread. This is my child and she is tearing the world apart. "Elsa, stop this madness! Please!"_

_But it was a dream, and the Elsa in the dream did not hear him. She just laughed and laughed and laughed and the world continued to freeze and burn in an endless cycle of destruction. Hail the size of wagon wheels began to fall from the sky, and frozen rain like daggers rained upon the heads of soldiers and villagers, and blood and ripped flesh ran down the streets of Arendelle and flooded the culverts and storm drains._

_Elsa lifted her hand._

_Aleksander reached out for his daughter and opened his mouth to stop her, but it was too late._

_The red-blue light radiated out of Elsa and burst outwards in a supernova of pure, unadulterated energy, and the world ached and groaned as thunder roared, lightning crackled, and ice froze fire and winter burned._

_And Aleksander's spirit was torn apart._

_But the dream would not let him escape so easily._

_ The scattered particles of his being hung in a sudden blackness that replaced the hellish pandemonium that ravaged Arendelle. His stomach lurched as his spiritual structure rearranged itself, and it was becoming harder and harder to differentiate between dreamscape and reality. None of this could have been real, but the bite of the winter chill, the stench of the dead and the screams of the dying, and the insane laughter of his eldest daughter seemed all too authentic._

_ Aleksander gasped as he was put together and left hanging in the overwhelming darkness. He spun and twisted but it was as if an intangible hand held him aloft by his collar. He cursed and swore but whatever dark magic possessed him would not relent. He would have cursed and sworn more if it were not for the sudden sound of whispers that started all around him._

_ "Hello!" he cried out. "Who's there? Unhand me this instant!"_

_ Grey smoke rose from below and twisted and turned like ashy serpents in the dark oblivion. The king watched the hypnotic movements with wide, suspicious eyes, and he renewed his struggle to escape. The smoke coiled into an expanse of ever-shifting grayness in front of him like a wall of dusky mist._

_ And then the voices, thousands of them, all in unison, male and female, spoke._

_**"The Pretender-King and the Moon Child separated by the will of the Oathbreaker. As it was foretold. The cycle turns and turns until the end of time."**_

_ Aleksander clenched his fists. "What are you on about? What is happening to me?"_

_**"Your coming signals the end of this age. The cycle turns and turns until the end of time."**_

_ Aleksander narrowed his eyes. "Who are you?"_

_ The smoke shifted, and while they dissipated just as quickly as they appeared, he could clearly see the faces form in the fog. Old faces, young faces, faces of different gender, some wearing feathered headdresses and others wearing nothing at all but dark braided hair, but all were of the indigenous people of the island_.

_**"We are those who came before. When the Moon Child made his fires we were brought out in the smoke. We are the children of the island, and so when we perish, it is to the island we return. We sought communion with the Pretender-King and entered your sleep-walk. We saw your soul, False One, and we saw the world destroyed in ice and fire. The cycle turns and turns until the end of time."**_

_ Aleksander's breath caught in his throat. He leaned forward as far as he could, the muscles in his neck straining against him. "Was all of that true? Is it happening right now?"_

_**"Now. Then. Will. Again. Does it matter? The world will surely end even so. The cycle turns and turns until the end of time."**_

_ Aleksander shook his head. "No, you're wrong. Not my daughter. Not my Elsa. I have no doubt the world will end someday, but at her hands? You have the wrong girl."_

_**"Your bloodline is volatile. Constantly her destiny changes hands. You saw this when she hurt your other spawn. The Children of Stone abated her fate, but it will always confront her. Nothing is certain save for the world's eventual ending. The cycle turns and turns until the end of time."**_

_ Aleksander stiffened at the mention of the accident. Elsa had indeed nearly killed her younger sister, and the Trolls had indeed saved her from certain death. "She's better than you think. She will overcome the curse and rule over my people as queen. I know it will be so."_

_**"This is a possibility. The curse can be controlled and she will live. But that outcome has little hope. If she does not find a way to thaw that which is frozen, all will seek to either control her or kill her. You saw it in the sleep-walk, Pretender-King. The cycle turns and turns until the end of time."**_

_Aleksander bristled. "Why must you keep calling me that?" he snarled. "I am no pretender. I am King Aleksander IV of Arendelle, and the right to rule is mine!"_

_**"King of Arendelle you are, but king of the island you are not. Only one holds dominion here, and he seeks to destroy you and enslave the Moon Child to his will. The cycle turns and turns until the end of time."**_

_ "Who is the Moon Child?"_

_**"Your companion. He is a seed of the Moon come to right the wrongs of this world. The cycle turns and turns until the end of time."**_

_Aleksander's head snapped up. Jack, then. Jack was the Moon Child. His last memory of his friend was him placing a bed sheet over his healing body before he fell asleep. "Is he still alive?" he said, heart pounding in his chest. "Is he safe?"_

_**"The Moon Child sought blood-payment for your wounds. He killed Wana-gan and suffered wounds of his own. The Oathbreaker's people took him in and he is with them now. The Oathbreaker has plans for him. The cycle turns and turns until the end of time."**_

_ Aleksander frowned. "Oathbreaker?"_

_ The smoke shifted again. A ship formed in the misty tableau, a ship filled with tall, noble figures with long flowing hair looking sternly to the east. They were dressed in resplendent robes and wore golden circlets around their proud heads._

_**"He and his people came over the ocean long ago when the island was younger and the Children of Sky still nested in the mountains. They came with treasures, ships, and metal weapons. They drove the Children of Sky out of the mountains and ruled over the Three Tribes for the duration of an age. But the people took up arms and restored balance to the island by eradicating them. All but one. The cycle turns and turns until the end of time."**_

_ "So what happened? Is he the Oathbreaker?"_

_**"The intruders thought themselves high-minded, but they were no stranger to the ancient arts. Among their number was a mighty sorcerer who experimented with the children of the island. He perverted the natural order in order to quench his thirst for knowledge. His shelter was the first to be attacked when the reclamation began. He was killed in the ensuing struggle, but his son escaped. The wishes of the father became the wishes of the son. The cycle turns and turns until the end of time."**_

_ "But that can't be right," said Aleksander. "If what you say is true, then all of that occurred centuries ago. The Oathbreaker cannot be the son."_

_**"The son was born with the curse like your daughter, but one of a different make. He destroyed much of the island children in his escape, but he was not without injury. But as he fled, he encountered the secret we have long kept hidden, and in his desire to live, he used it for his own advantage and broke the sacred oath we made to the one who bequeathed it to us. The cycle turns and turns until the end of time."**_

_ Aleksander closed his eyes. It was all too much to process, too much to absorb. A curse like Elsa's? A bequeathed secret? "I don't understand."_

_**"From the sun's gift he drew out eternity. His power grew, and after an age of rest, he returned to the Three Tribes masquerading as a friend. He learned their ways and gained control over their leaders. When the time was ripe, he poisoned the chiefs of the Dalagan and took control as their leader. With this new authority, he wiped out the Anagan and drove the Karagan out of their lands. He has ruled the island ever since, and because of his rule only he is the Qarakan. Chief of All. The True King. The cycle turns and turns until the end of time."**_

_ "And this…Oathbreaker," Aleksander said. "He has Jack now?"_

_**"The Moon Child will suffer at his hands. He seeks to turn him to his will, for he knows the secret that eludes even you. He will do anything to finish his father's work and find the Garden. There is no doubt Ashanagarethanarak will break him apart. The cycle turns and turns until the end of time."**_

_ Aleksander frowned. "Well. That's quite a mouthful of a name," he muttered to himself. He furiously shook his head as if a mosquito buzzed by his ear. That young rascal's starting to rub off on me, he thought._

_**"Find the Moon Child. Save him. Let him fulfill his destiny here on this world. The cycle turns and turns until the end of time."**_

_ "How?" Aleksander said. He tried to move his hands and feet, to maybe run after the smoke that was already beginning to fade away, but he could not. The dreamscape still reigned supreme. "How do I do that? I need guidance. I can't do it on my own."_

_**"Your fate is entwined with his. Your fate is entwined with ours."**_

_ "No, stop! Wait!"_

_**"The cycle turns and turns until the end of time…"**_

_"Wait! Please!"_

The dream ended.

Aleksander woke up.

The first thing that hit him was the pain.

When he opened his eyes, he gasped for air and hissed at the sudden brightness of the encroaching dawn. But when he tried to sit up and survey his surroundings, fire exploded on his chest, and he cried out and fell back. He breathed sharply through his nose as he waited for the agony to subside.

When it became bearable, he got up a fraction; elbows pressed against the ground, he lifted up the beddings to assess his wounds. The linen bandages were stained red with his blood, but they weren't growing, and a quick sniff told him that they were not festering. So no danger of gangrene, then. Still, Aleksander thought as he slowly removed the heap of blankets on top of him, it hurt like hell.

Dizzy with recovery, he began to move out of the warmth of the blankets like a hermit crab from its shell. Every movement was like scorching hellfire, but he ground his teeth and moved on. He was about to be completely free from the bedding when he heard a twig snap somewhere nearby.

Aleksander looked up and saw two painted warriors crouched in the tree line not ten yards away. He froze in shock. The men stood transfixed as well, as if they could not believe their luck at finding their quarry so soon. They had an exchange of surprised stares before the men darted forward, wicked spears up and ready for the kill.

Aleksander cursed and scrambled for Daemon. The burn of his wounds intensified but he ignored them in favor of the immediate defense of his life. Damn it all, he thought with rising terror when Daemon was nowhere to be found. He looked up just in time to see the lead warrior let loose a high-pitched cry and lift his spear. Aleksander, heart hammering, glared defiantly up at the dark-skinned man, unwilling to cower at the face of his death.

A hiss sounded, like an angry wasp flying by, and the warrior stumbled back, momentum halted. He looked confused, and he stared wide-eyed at the thick arrow shaft protruding from his bare chest before gurgling up blood and falling back. His spear cluttered at the feet of his partner, who was frozen in astonishment. Another arrow came whizzing out from behind Aleksander, and the tall hunter groped at his pierced throat before joining his brother on the ground. Aleksander stared at their corpses, chest heaving.

Footsteps sounded from behind him, and he craned his neck back to see a shadow fall over him. He gazed at the towering figure framed by rising sunlight with fear and awe. Throat dry, he swallowed nervously as the man drew back the bowstring and leveled the arrowhead directly at Aleksander's face.

"So," he said with a gruff voice. "Tell me exactly why I shouldn't stick this arrow down your throat and feed the gulls."

Aleksander's eyes grew wide as saucers. He sputtered, trying to articulate his answer but failing miserably.

"I love how tongue-tied they get," the stranger sighed. "It's like they've never stared death in the face before. Should be a daily occurrence on this accursed island, if you ask me."

"You…you're…" the king began.

"The illustrious decider of your fate? The grim-faced executioner at the chopping board? The sickle-wielding reaper here to ferry you to the beyond?" The stranger narrowed his brown eyes and peered at Aleksander. He was so close the king could feel his warm breath on his face. "Or am I your worst nightmare?"

Aleksander shook his head. "None of those things. You're…white."

The tall man sniffed, stood back, and removed the arrow from Aleksander's face. "I prefer the term 'pale-skinned', or of a rosy, delicate complexion. It's bad enough that I burn easily, so there's no need to categorize or delve into absolutes. We're all the same inside."

Aleksander shook his head. "Why are you dressed like them?"

The man reached out a hand and helped Aleksander to his feet. The king hissed as the movement caused his wounds to sting. The man, who was indeed painted and garbed in leaves, a green leather hood, and a loincloth of the same color, dusted him off. "Twenty years stranded on a tropical island tends to alter the mindset. It's either go native or go die on this leafy rock, so I opted for the former. Much better option, believe you me."

"Who are you?"

His white skin painted in dark, gaudy colors, his gray hair, long and matted, poking out from under his green hood, a sharp goatee on his chin that was curiously kept neatly shaven unlike his other facial hair, he made quite the unbelievable sight. Aleksander still was not completely sure if this was real life or just another cruel trick of the dreamscape. The man flashed him a quick smile, which could have been pulled off better if it were not for the horrid state of his teeth. Still, the roguish charm shone through, and he gripped Aleksander's unoffered hand with a strength that belied the wrinkles on his face.

"Ezekiel Fitzherbert, at your bloody service."

**XXXXX**

The drums started pounding at noon.

Jack could tell it was noon because the sun burned at the zenith of its journey, high above them like a dragon's eye, and he could tell they were pounding because every hair stood on end at each hideous beat, and his skin seemed to vibrate under its unnatural magnitude. Jack sat up, as did every man in the cage.

"What the devil is that?" Bror muttered, wiping his eyes.

Robert stood up and peered through the bars of the cage. "They're gathering by the village. It must be some kind of meeting."

Jack joined him. A crowd of them was gathered around the village, the men, women, and children huddled close together and surrounded by a ring of warriors. The tall warriors were yelling out commands and prodding the villagers with the butt of their spears. He frowned. "That doesn't look good." He turned to Robert. "This hasn't happened before?"

The first mate shook his head. "The last time we heard the drums was the night of your arrival. This is unfamiliar to us as it is to you."

There was a dark blur in the periphery of Jack's vision. The cage door was flung open and a huge meaty hand snaked in and grabbed Jack by the collar.

"Hey!" he yelled and tried to wrestle himself from Tiny's grasp. The survivors cried out in outrage and moved forward as one to hold Jack back, but the giant warrior spat and lifted Jack out of the cage before they could get a proper grip. Tiny dangled Jack in the air for a moment before slamming him down to the ground. Robert gripped the cage bars until his fingers grew white and glared at the guard.

"Put him back in here," he snarled.

Tiny smirked and picked Jack up again. Jack clawed at the hand that held his hood but it was like dislodging a rock from a mountain. Jack's mind was wrapped in terror and confusion. What the hell was going on? Tiny began to drag him towards the commotion in the village square, ignoring Jack's wild struggles and the sailor's indignant shouts. Jack swore and batted at the arm with his fists. Tiny paused, turned, and brought his own fist down on Jack's wide open face. Stars flew in the sudden darkness of his vision. He cried out and fell back, dazed and helpless as Tiny resumed dragging him onwards. Jack opened one eye to see many of the villagers staring at him with wide, fearful eyes.

They stopped at a small wooden post in the center of the square. The sight of it stopped Jack's heart. His stomach sank, and every hopeful thought was dissipated that instant. He would have redoubled his efforts to free himself if his face didn't feel like the moon had landed on it. He hung limply in Tiny's grip while the crowd muttered quietly.

"Let him go, Sakaz."

Tiny grunted and let go of Jack. He fell to the forest floor with a moan. The dirt was hot under his cheek, and he could hear the little vibrations of approaching footsteps through the earth.

Bare feet entered Jack's blurry vision. He looked up to see Ash warmly smiling down at him, shirtless and arms clasped behind his back. The man's blue eyes bore no detectable malice, but Jack knew that it lurked in there somewhere, ready to be unleashed at any given moment. He tried to get up, but Ash clucked his tongue disapprovingly. "No, no, no, Jack," he said like a teacher to a dim-witted student. He rested his foot on Jack's shoulder and pushed him back down. "You will rise when I tell you to. That is lesson number one, my friend: you must obey my every word."

"Like hell I will," Jack said. He glared up at Ash with as much hatred as he could muster. "I knew there was something off about you."

"Oh? And what is that?"

"You're a lunatic."

Ash laughed.

Two guards appeared behind Jack and picked him up with rough hands. Jack snarled and tried to break free from their handles, but they held firm. Ash watched him spit and struggle wildly with amusement. "Bind him," he ordered.

"No!" screamed Jack, but the guards moved with automaton determination and brought him to the whipping post. It was such a little thing, but as it grew closer in his wide eyes, fear overtook him, and in his head memories of criminals being tied to the posts and scourged until the skin was ripped off their back while he could do nothing but observe dominated his thoughts.

The guards bent Jack over and began to strap him to the post with rough coils of rope.

Ash watched the proceedings with a little smile. He turned to the silent crowd of villagers and spread his arms. "You wanted him," he said. "Here he is. The Moon Child, in all his triumphant glory. Truly a sight to behold." He turned back to the guards. "Remove his clothing."

Hands bound to the wood, Jack was helpless as one of the dark men took his spear and ripped through his sweater. He stripped it off of Jack and threw it aside. Jack closed his eyes in shame and started to tremble. Not because of the cold – nothing was cold for him – but because of his weakness. He was disgusted by it. He could not even rip free from his bindings.

"My men told me of the rumors," Ash continued. He surveyed the villagers with an almost benevolent grace on his angelic countenance. "Of the mutterings. They counseled me, warned me, about it, but I held fast. I could not believe that my people, the people who I have led for five long generations, would speak ill against me. They love me, I told myself. They love me, and I love them. Nothing can break that love apart."

Jack heard a rustling behind him. He craned his head back in time to see a guard uncoiling a long strand of glistening black material that sent a spike of terror into Jack's chest.

Ash shook his head. "But I was wrong. My people, my Dalagan, have indeed whispered against my leadership. I have seen the scroll of prophesy myself, and I know who wrote it."

A plaintive cry sounded. The crowd parted to reveal Sakaz dragging forward a short, aging man in tribal tattoos. It took a moment for Jack to recognize him as Danak, the man who had healed him of the cat's claw wounds. The healer had a fresh bruise on his face, and he stared at Ash with a blank yet defiance gaze.

"Oh, Danak," Ash sighed. "My healer. My son. Did I not take you as a babe and give you my blessing before the tribe? Did I not instruct you in the ways of the island? What happened? Why place your hope on a stranger and not on your Father?"

Danak shook his head silently. "You are not my Father."

Ash regarded him quietly.

"Very well. Because I love you, Danak, I will not harm you. Surely you can be saved from the poison of whatever lies you have heard. Remember, child, I was the one who taught you everything you know."

He turned to face the whole of the crowd. "Your mutiny has been revealed. You can whisper in secrecy no longer. I know of whom you speak in the comfort of your homes. I know of what you pray for in the dark hours of the night. I know who you wish to overthrow me as the True King of the island."

Ash pointed at Jack's hunched form. "But your Moon Child – your savior – lies here at my feet and at my mercy. Look how he shakes like a lamb in the cold. Look how weak his skin is, how coarse his language. He is covered in the filth of men and speaks like a rude child and this is the one who will rescue you? Surely this is a joke."

Jack tried to catch the eyes of any of the villagers, but they cowered under Ash's presence and avoided his gaze. Even Danak could not meet his eyes. Jack turned his head. "You brought the children out, Ash?" he slurred, his mouth beginning to numb from the force of Sakaz's punch. "You brought them to watch this?"

Ash did not look at him but directed his next words at Jack. "Lesson number two: The young must learn from the mistakes of the foolish in order to grow wise. Jack. These are my children whom I love. You must suffer so that they can understand the gravity of their actions."

He lifted his hand, and Jack closed his eyes.

Ash nodded and dropped his arm.

The guard stepped back, held up the whip, and brought it down with a snap.

Pain exploded on Jack's back.

He gritted his teeth and groaned, but he did not cry out.

The whip came down again, and again he shut his mouth to trap any outcry of weakness. Ash continued to speak as the whip rose and fell, as Jack writhed in mindless agony.

"How many lessons must I teach you people? How many times must I do things like this in order to have you understand that I love you more than anyone ever could? When you were hungry, I gave you food. When you were thirsty, I gave you water. When you needed guidance, I took up the throne and delivered you to victory. When the Anagan attacked us unprovoked, I took up the burden of their extinction and drove the Karagan from our lands. When your chief fell to the sickness, when your ancestors abandoned you to your enemies, it was I who saved you from destruction. And this is how you repay me?"

The guard grunted, displeased at Jack's silence. He lifted the whip and brought it down with as much force he could muster.

His wounds reopened and this time Jack opened his mouth and screamed. The guard, rejuvenated by the sound, rained blow after terrible blow, and Jack continued to scream from the pain that was unlike anything he had ever felt. It was more than sorrow or joy or loneliness. It was everything and it poured like acid into every facet of his being until he became nothing but the pain itself.

Ash closed his eyes and shivered at his screams.

"My children, your Moon Child is nothing. He is weak. I am strong. He is ignorant of our ways, and you think he can lead you to enlightenment? Don't be foolish." He looked to the warrior. "Harder!"

Jack screamed and screamed until his throat died. When he could scream no longer he just held on to the post and shook under the crack of the whip, he held on to the post because it was like an anchor to his sanity and if he let go he would be lost forever in an eternity of pain.

Ash raised his hand.

The warrior stopped, his barrel chest heaving. Ash approached Jack's slumped over form and dropped on one knee so that he knelt close to his side. He laid a hand on his back, a pale back now covered with angry red stripes, and Jack moaned at the touch.

"I don't hate you, Jack," he said comfortingly. "I find you fascinating. I want you alive so that I can share with you the wonders of my land. But my children have begun to believe that you can save them from me. They needed to be taught that I am their salvation." He leaned close and whispered in Jack's ear. "Lesson number three: I am _your_ salvation."

Jack lifted his head and looked at him with red eyes. "No you're not, you son of a bitch."

The mask cracked. Something ugly flickered in his faint blue eyes. Ash tilted his head. "Watch your tongue else I hurt you more."

Jack coughed. "You can whip me all you want but you will never hurt me."

"Oh? And why is that, Moon Child?"

"Because this pain is nothing compared to losing the people you love forever," Jack replied. "You think you're all that? Here's the truth, you bastard. You're nothing."

The villagers were stunned.

Ash said nothing at first. He merely looked into Jack's rebellious eyes with a blank nothingness on his perfect features.

Finally, he nodded, stood, and took the tool from the shocked guard's limp hands.

And he started to whip Jack.

"You would dare," _Crack. _"To insult me in front of my family." _Crack._ "You would dare," _Crack._ "To shame my rule over this island and all within it." _Crack. _"Here is the real truth, Moon Child," _Crack. _"You may pretend to be brave, but we all know that inside, you are a sad pathetic creature unworthy of love." _Crack. _"You deserve to be spit upon. You deserve to be hated." _Crack. _"You will never be loved by anyone because I will lock you away and hide you from the moon until there is nothing left of you but flesh and bone and empty heart." _Crack. _"I will exact such torments upon you that you will be begging me to kill you, to send you into the embrace of the island." _Crack. _"And when it is all over," _Crack. _"When you are completely redeemed," _Crack. _"I will have you kill each and every one of those men in the cage and feed them to the carrion birds." _Crack. _"And when their bones are picked clean, I will send you out into the forest to find the Pretender-King." _Crack. Crack. _"And when you find him, you will take his sword and cut him into tiny pieces and cast them into the water." _Crack. Crack. Crack. _"And only then will you be saved, Moon Child! Only then will you be mine!"

_Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack._

"Stop!"

Ash paused and stepped back, breathing heavily. His great chest was slick with sweat and Jack's blood. He faced the voice that had spoken. "Why should I stop?"

Danak's old face was lined with worry. Sakaz held him tight, but he was desperate enough to step forward and point at Jack. "You have whipped him enough. The boy is unconscious."

Ash turned back to his victim. The Moon Child was slumped over the whipping post, his back red with blood and raw with old and fresh wounds. He was breathing, but he was nearly as still as a corpse. Ash smiled and wiped a fleck of blood from his jaw. "That is no boy," he murmured.

He dropped the bloody whip and waved a hand. "Treat his injuries, Danak. Do nothing else until he is completely healed. You will look upon his broken body day and night in reminder of your sins. Leave me."

The villagers scattered like gulls. The warriors herded them into their homes like cattle, while four stayed to carry Jack to Danak's hut. The old healer stayed a while, staring at Ash with open, stiff-limbed fury. Sakaz growled and gripped his arm.

"O great one," Danak remarked as he was led away. He pointed at his own cheek.

Ash frowned and lifted his hand to his face and felt around.

He froze.

His eyes widened.

Just below his cheek. A slight sagging. An indentation.

_No._

_ No no no no no no no._

Ash hid his face and ran from the village square, straight towards the surrounding forest. Danak watched him until he faded from view. Sakaz growled louder and tugged him to his dwelling, and when they were gone, the village was silent save for the mournful moaning of a sudden ocean breeze and the quiet, sorrowful sound of a woman weeping.

**XXXXX**

Ash let the flower's magic wrap around him.

He sighed in relief as the light suffused him in a golden glow. He felt the little wrinkle disappear completely, and it was like a great weight was lifted from his shoulders. He sat back and closed his eyes, allowing the adrenaline to recede to normalcy.

Ash cursed the Moon Child. His little antic had forced his hand. It had been a very long time since he felt such pure anger, such unabashed desire to punish another soul until there was nothing left to punish. A red haze had enveloped his vision when those filthy lies spouted from his mouth, and then he grabbed the whip, and then he could not stop. His rage was so bad that when he rushed to the flower, he did not even conduct the rite of cleansing before using its power. It was true that he lost control, but it felt good to really exert his body again after years of relaxation. He felt revived, renewed even. Yet he could not help but think that his father would have been ashamed at his lack of restraint.

_No matter,_ he thought. _There will be time to reform him. To break him while I still can. While he is still fresh. _

Confidence restored, he made his way back to the hut.

He was stopped halfway back. The messenger, the son of one of his warriors, was gasping and shivering in his presence. Ash sighed and looked down lovingly at the young servant. "What is it, boy?"

"The Pretender-King," he started, and then looked down at his feet. "The men you sent to retrieve him…they're…we cannot…"

Ash's face hardened. He leaned forward, cupped the boy's chin, and looked deep into his dark, watery eyes. "Spit it out."

"We've lost him."

Ash snapped.

The boy frowned as his master's palm grew very, very hot, and he was suddenly puzzled as to why the area around him matched that heat, and it became so scorching that sweat ran down his face in rivulets, and his skin seared and started to steam.

"Master?" he asked, confused. Surely the great man who saved his people would be able to help him understand. "What's happening?"

Ash was silent.

"Master, it hurts."

"Hush now."

The boy struggled to break free, but Ash held on. The boy's eyes widened as the heat became unbearable, and every pore on his body seemed to open up and melt from whatever was blazing inside of him. "Master…" he cried, squirming. "Please…"

"Do not worry, my child," he said. "Everything will be alright."

The temperature reached its tipping point.

The very air hissed.

The boy burst into flames.

He opened his mouth to scream, but the only sound was the roar of the fire that devoured him. His last thought before the fire extinguished him forever and sent his soul racing to the island's embrace was that of the look in his master's eyes as his world burned, and of how he scared he was to look into them, for he saw in them not the kindness of a savior, but the terrible evil of a demon.

Ash released the body, now burnt to a charcoal-black, and let it drop to the earth with a sizzle and a thud. He opened and closed his fist, relishing the power flowing through his veins.

He remembered when he first discovered the fire that burned inside of him. Not yet ten, he had been petting a chick he had found abandoned on the forest floor when it suddenly pecked him. He was hurt, but more than anything he felt insulted. He had taken the time to pick up the creature and offer it comfort and this was his payment? He would not stand for it.

The next thing he knew the chick was roasted in his hands, and his father was standing over him, gaping at the black carcass with undisguised awe.

"This is not a curse, son," his father had said, although Ash felt no sadness in his heart. Only a righteous vindication. "This is a gift. The gods have granted you powers beyond imagination."

"What do I do?"

He had closed his hands over Ash's, expression solemn. "The others, not even the council, cannot know. Not yet. Not while you are still learning. They will try to take you away from me."

"I don't want to leave you, Papa."

"And I don't want to leave you. But we must keep this a secret, yes? Just between the two of us."

"Yes, Papa."

"Close your eyes and forget about this for a while. Can you do that, son? Conceal it within your mind and feel it no longer. Do not let it show or else we will lose each other forever."

"Yes, Papa."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

But Ash had lost him in the end. Lost him to those filthy savages and their spears. When he had run into the village and found his father dead on the ground, he'd awakened his powers and burned his murderers to ashes.

But that was a long time ago, and it was the last time he had used his gift. And as he stared down at the immolated corpse at his feet, he felt content. At peace. He no longer needed to conceal that which was rightfully his to display. The gods had seen him fit to grant him greatness, so he must do what was fitting and let his fire burn.

And once he captured the Pretender-King, Ash would make sure to feed him to his flames.

* * *

**A/N: Didn't expect that, now did you? Or maybe you did and I'm not nearly as clever as I think I am. Either way, hope you like it, and don't forget to drop a review on your way out!**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: I rushed this one, but here it is.**

* * *

"Are we there yet?" Aleksander asked, swatting away a fly from his face. "The longer I stay in this accursed forest, the more I hate it."

"Don't worry," said Ezekiel. He was in front of the king, swiping at the reaching underbrush with his bow. "It's not far. And after twenty years you get used to the heat."

"Well I do not plan on staying here for that long, thank you very much."

"I didn't, either. But the heavens have a strange way of dictating our fates, don't they?"

Aleksander sighed. "I suppose so."

After disposing of the bodies, Aleksander agreed to head to Ezekiel's home, which was apparently, much to the king's regret, on the other side of the island. "Don't worry," the peculiar man had said. "We'll get there in no time."

An hour later, Aleksander was beginning to think the man's sense of time had gone askew. Twenty years stranded on a dangerous island could do that to a person. But Aleksander ignored his discomfort and trudged onwards, wanting to put as much distance between him and the campsite as possible. He was sure the Oathbreaker was already sending out more men to hunt him down.

"So," Aleksander said. He wiped his brow, which was already damp with sweat. "How did you end up here?"

"Shipwrecked," said Ezekiel. "As far as I know, it's the only way to get here. This place is not on any map I've ever seen."

"And before that?"

"Watch your step," he said, stepping over a rotting log overgrown with moss and vines. Aleksander grimaced at the thing and gingerly stepped over it. Ezekiel continued to walk, lips pursed. "Well, it's a long story. And I'm sure you wouldn't want to waste your time listening to little old me blabber on and on about my boring past."

Aleksander shrugged. "That's fine with-"

"Oh, alright, alright. If you insist." Ezekiel slowly stroked his goatee. "Where to begin? Ah, yes. I'll start there. My story begins in the festive streets of Corona, where I made my trade as a traveling salesman. I would walk from home to home selling various gadgets and gizmos to those who were wise enough to purchase them. The more I sold, the more I was paid by my employers. It was a humble occupation, but I was able to make a good amount of money. I might not look like it now, but back then, I was quite the charmer, and few townspeople could resist the lure of my smoldering gaze and dangerously good looks."

Aleksander rolled his eyes. "Go on."

"It was during one of my daily circuits around the town when I met the woman of my dreams." Ezekiel's voice took on a wistful quality. "Her hair was the color of sunlight, and her beauty was unlike anything I had ever seen. Everything about her screamed perfection, my friend. I fell in love in an instant. I'm sure you can understand what that's like."

Aleksander nodded. When he had first seen Elana dancing in another man's arms at a ball, he was instantly smitten. "I presume this woman was your wife-to-be."

"Hardly. She left me for a chisel-jawed squire after two months. But it was through her that I met her sister, a delicate little thing with nearly the same features but a more loving heart, and it was with her that I came to know a truer love than what I had with the other. We married, and soon after we had a beautiful baby boy." Ezekiel sighed. "My little Eugene. He was our everything. The star around which we revolved."

Aleksander knew where this was heading. He could hear the impending tragedy in the nostalgia of the castaway's words. He hung his head in sadness as Ezekiel continued his tale.

"My boy was one year old when the plague hit Corona. Ships bearing infested rats from the East brought it upon our shores. You look like a learned man. I assume you've heard about it."

Aleksander nodded. "Yes. It was a horrible time for your country."

"Indeed. We lived near the port, so it was only a matter of time before one of us contracted the sickness. Sure enough, my sweet Winona came home from the market one day sweating and feverish. She could barely speak, let alone move, the poor thing. I tried everything I could to make her better: bowls of soup, wet rags on her forehead, every folk remedy imaginable. When all of that failed, I went to the physicians, but by that time a quarter of the city was either dead or dying. There was little they could do to help." Ezekiel's voice grew quiet and mournful. "She passed away within five weeks of receiving the sickness."

"I'm sorry."

Ezekiel sighed. "My wife was gone, and Eugene was motherless. After she died, the fight went out of me. I couldn't sell things like I used to. The whole city seemed just as defeated. Even when the plague passed, we lost too many lives for things to feel the same. It got so bad that I could no longer support myself and Eugene. I lost everything: the job, the house, most of my belongings. We were living under bridges for a while, and every night I would weep for my little boy and the woman I lost."

Aleksander stared at the back of Ezekiel's head, trying to figure him out. He did not expect to hear such disaster in the man's past at first. It was obvious he hid it all under a veneer of mischief and jokes. But either way, he felt deeply for him. It seemed like everyone who ended up on the island lost something they loved.

"So what happened?"

"I knew Eugene was not going to have a good life if he stayed with me. So I had to start anew. After many days and sleepless nights of thinking about it, I made a choice. While Eugene was still asleep, I wrapped him up in the one blanket we had left and dropped him off at the orphanage. Leaving him there, little and alone in the cold, broke my heart, but I knew it was best for him. I did not want him to grow up with a failure of a man for a father. I hid a ways off until someone came out and took him inside, and only then did I leave, knowing he was now safe in more capable hands. I went to the docks and was able to get a job as a sailor on a merchant ship. The pay was good, and although that meant I would be spending a great deal of my time away from home, I think that was what I needed. Some fresh air and the still calm you can find only on the waves."

"You never went back, then?" asked Aleksander. "Never went back to see your son?"

Ezekiel shrugged. "Why would I? There was no point to it. He was better off without me, and the orphanage had a good track record for producing upstanding citizens. I'm sure he would have ended up a thief and a rogue if he was under my care. I sailed for a year with the merchant ship, and we traveled far and wide in that little span of time. It was then that I heard of our missing princess. I was tempted to go back, but I knew one look at my beloved city would destroy me all over again."

Aleksander remembered the ordeal as if it were yesterday. Antony and his wife had been distraught, even more so than when the little girl was sick. He had even lent the king some of his own resources to help him find the girl, but Princess Rapunzel was nowhere to be found. Mentions of the past made Aleksander all the more eager to return home and help with those who needed his aid.

"I assume it was on this merchant ship that you crashed here."

"We were headed to Arendelle to deliver some Austerland goods when the storm hit us. A furious, raging squall that came out of nowhere and ripped the ship apart. I hit my head on the mast and next thing I knew I was washed up on a tropical island. I thought it was a dream at first. When the savages came and picked up me and three other survivors, I thought it was a nightmare. But everything became all too real when we were taken to their village and put in a cage like animals."

"Where was this village?"

"Not far from where you camped. It's near the center of the island, by its lowest valley. The Dalagan live there, and they are ruled by Ashanagarethanarak."

The name sparked a memory in Aleksander. A memory of ice and fire and faces in the smoke. His eyes widened. "The Oathbreaker…" he breathed.

"That's his other name. The name you don't want to say out loud when you're around him. He came to us as a friend at first, inviting us over to his damned hut and dining with us as if we were old friends. He asked us questions about our lives, our education. He wanted to know about Corona and the world beyond, and we gladly gave him the information, just content to be alive."

"And when he was done with you…?"

Ezekiel laughed bitterly. "You can imagine my surprise when he started to summarily sacrifice us to appease the will of the island. It seemed that our use was finished after he'd learned all that was possible to dissect from our heads. He took one of us, another survivor that he'd kept separate from us four, out in the middle of the night and, right in front of an assembly of the people, slit his throat with an obsidian blade and poured his blood onto the sand."

Aleksander closed his eyes. He could not imagine the evil within a man to propel him to commit such an act. "How did you escape?"

"He kept us away from the executions after that. You know, to build up the suspense. Only one guard watched over us, since we were weak and chained to the cage bars. Soon I was the only one left, and I was sitting there in the corner, weeping my eyes out, when suddenly I heard a thwack, a cry, and a thud. Someone had knocked our guard clean out. This man just appeared out of nowhere and began to free me from my bindings. Said his name was Danak, and that he was the tribe healer. Apparently he had enough with his master's evil and he came to put a stop to it. He let me go and told me to run east of there, and as fast as I could. Once they discovered that I was free, I would be pursued like a wild dog and put down on sight. So, as was sensible, I ran, and I never saw that godforsaken place again. I still wonder what happened to the man who freed me. I owe him a great debt."

"How did you escape the search parties?"

"I don't know. I'm surprised by it myself. All I do know is that I wandered around the forest for three days until I was found by a Karagan hunting group. They nearly killed me if they didn't have a hunter who spoke the common tongue. Crudely, mind you, but it was enough to keep me alive. They took me in and I began to learn their ways and their history. It's how I'm such a good shot with this beauty," he said, wiggling his bow. "Fifteen years I spent with the Karagan, and I wouldn't have known it if they didn't have an old calendar that washed up by their camp a while back. After that, I left them and made a place for myself."

"And you remain friends with the Karagan?"

"I talk with them every now and again, but I keep to myself most of the time. Of course, whenever one of the Dalagan ventures too close to Karagan territory, I make sure to shoot an arrow through his throat to save them the trouble. And they equip me with food and other good things when I'm down on supplies. It's a mutual relationship, it is." He stopped so suddenly that Aleksander nearly bumped into him. "Ah, here we are. Home sweet home."

The king had been so engrossed in Ezekiel's story that he hadn't heard the sound of crashing water until he looked up and saw the waterfall for his own eyes. It fell from a rocky ledge dense with vegetation and filled into a sizeable pool. It fed into a creek that ran straight through the forest and into its deep shadows. Aleksander wondered if this was the source of the water that kept him and Jack alive for the few days they had spent in their camp.

"Isn't it convenient?" Ezekiel said with pride. "A drinking source, toilet and a bath all in one."

Aleksander stomach sank. "Oh dear."

"Oh, don't fret; we won't be sharing it all at once. We can take turns."

Ezekiel led him to the edge of the rippling pool. He sidestepped the lower rim of the pond and disappeared behind the wall of falling water. Aleksander followed him, realizing how cleverly Ezekiel had chosen his home. He went behind the waterfall and found himself in a good-sized cave. The air was cool, and judging by the state of it, the hunter had taken to it well.

Ezekiel placed his bow and quiver down by the entrance and walked into his home with the swagger of a young man straight out of academy showing his new flat to his friends. He swung his hands and smiled. "Wonderful, isn't it?"

A workman's table and a rickety chair were set by one of the walls, where it looked like he was working on new arrowheads for his weapon. A dark cot that must've been his bed was by the far wall, and a pile of supplies were gathered on the opposite side. It was a very Spartan dwelling, such a contrast with its owner's eccentric personality. Aleksander just nodded. "It's a good place."

"Good? It's bloody marvelous. The best place on the island, if you ask me. Well, it at least gives Ash's hut a run for its money."

"I believe you."

Ezekiel sat in the chair by the table with a content sigh. He began to sharpen the wicked-looking arrowheads with a knife he procured seemingly from thin air. "Well enough about me. How'd you end up on this tropical paradise? I can tell you're not exactly the rough-and-tumble kind of guy."

Aleksander frowned. "How so?"

"Well, the way you talk for one thing. It's not just the words, but how you say them, you know? Like you're in a classroom or something. And the way you carry yourself, as well. Straight back, arms relaxed but not too loose. Let me guess: rich merchant? High-ranking military officer? Some exiled nobility?"

Aleksander hesitated, but relented. It was going to come up sooner or later, so it might as well be now. "Not exactly," he said, still trying to think up of a good way to word his answer.

Ezekiel looked up from his tinkering to fix him with an arched eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"You are wrong about one of those things, right about one more, and half-right about another."

Ezekiel furrowed his brow. "A poor merchant from a military background exiled from his country for embezzlement?"

Aleksander sighed. "Try the King of Arendelle, graduate of the premier military academy in the Austerland Confederacy, shipwrecked on an island and who has nearly lost his life not once, but twice, in less than a week."

Ezekiel gaped. The arrowhead dropped from his fingers. "Phillipa's knickers, it can't be. You're Aleksander IV of Arendelle?"

Aleksander spread his arms. "I know. I don't look the part."

Ezekiel shook his head. "Oh no, it's not that. I'm just suddenly regretting all the times I called you a stuck-up little twit with no sense of economic know-how."

Aleksander smiled. "Oh?"

Ezekiel blushed. He frantically picked up the arrowhead and fiddled with it, trying to avoid the king's gaze. "I said that aloud, didn't I?" he said quietly. "I always say things I'm not supposed to say aloud. You'll have to forgive me."

Aleksander smiled. "I forgive you. To be honest, I hadn't realized how refreshing it is."

"How refreshing what is?"

"To be insulted. It's like during my academy years, when I was allowed to be joked around with. Ever since being around Jack I am growing used to the banter of the old days."

Ezekiel frowned. He leaned back in his chair and wiggled the arrowhead. "Jack?"

"My companion. He washed up on this island at around the same time I did. You wouldn't happen to know him, now would you?"

"Skinny kid, right? Tall, white hair, blue eyes. Pale as snow?"

"That's the one!"

Ezekiel nodded and looked down. "I was out on a night run when I nearly bumped into a Dalagan hunting party. They were carrying your friend, who looked half-dead. If they were taking him where I think they were taking him, there's little hope left. I'm sorry."

Aleksander waved his hand. "Oh, I know he's been taken. That is why you must help me rescue him."

Ezekiel's eyes widened. "Rescue him? You must be joking. I'm not about to go waltzing back into that blasted camp. No sir, no thank you. I'm fine just where I am."

"My good man. You don't understand-"

Ezekiel scowled. "No, my king, I don't think you understand. I heard my friends as Ashanagarethanarak took that blade and ripped their throats open. I heard their screams; I heard their death rattles as the life seeped out of them. And I heard him laughing all the while. Every time I sleep I still hear their screams, his laugh. It's a nightmare every night for the past twenty years and it never goes away. It'd take a legion of hell-dogs to ever get me within a mile of that damned place, and king or not, you're not going to change that."

He crossed his arms and looked away.

Aleksander approached him, knelt down, and firmly grabbed his shoulders. Ezekiel froze. The king looked deep into his eyes. "Ezekiel Fitzherbert. I want to thank you for saving my life. I would not be breathing if it were not for your actions. All I ask is this one favor from you. One favor so that I may be reunited with a lad who I care for deeply. This sounds ridiculous, but he is the closest thing I have to a son. And I'm sure you understand how that feels."

Ezekiel swallowed nervously, but Aleksander did not fail to notice how his eyes began to shine with a sudden wetness. He pressed his shoulders harder. "I did not tell you this before, but not only is Jack imprisoned, but also a few of my sailors and the woman I love. The Queen of Arendelle is trapped within the Oathbreaker's realm, and if she dies, I would never forgive myself. And I know you understand how that feels very well."

Aleksander searched the man's eyes, which had begun to leak tears. Ezekiel looked to the side.

Ezekiel looked back at him. "It's highly unlikely that they're alive," he said quietly, after a moment of tearful thought.

Aleksander shook his head. "We'll never know if we don't go look."

"It's a suicide mission,"

"I don't care if I die," said Aleksander truthfully.

"Ashanagarethanarak is a hard man – if he is even a man – to kill."

Aleksander's face hardened. "I'll test that theory when I run my sword through his heart."

Ezekiel's face broke out in a sudden, ferocious smile. "I like your spirit."

Aleksander stood and offered his hand. "So you'll help me?"

Ezekiel followed the king to his feet and brushed himself off. "Hell, we just got here. Allow me some time to think on it."

Aleksander felt horrible for pressing him so, but fear clutched his heart every time his thoughts strayed to the people he cared about being tortured by this illusive and evil Oathbreaker. "Every second we waste is a second closer to their untimely end, Ezekiel."

The castaway sighed. He scratched the back of his head. "Alright," he said. Aleksander's heart leaped. They shook hands. "Fine. I'll help. We're going to bite it, I know that much, but I'll help."

Aleksander embraced the man in a bear hug and lifted him off his feet. Ezekiel squealed.

"I cannot thank you enough, Ezekiel Fitzherbert!"

"Don't thank me," wheezed the hunter. "Just let me breathe, for heaven's sake!"

The king released him. Aleksander knew he was probably smiling like an idiot, but he didn't mind. All that mattered was that he was one step closer to seeing Elana, Jack, and his men once more. "When do we leave?"

Ezekiel glared. "Steady on there. It's a suicide mission, but I'd like to go to my death a little more prepared. If we're going to infiltrate Dalagan territory, we're going to need help."

"What kind of help?"

"Help from people who've been here far longer than the both of us. People who've actually lived in the forest before they were driven out to the coast by Ash's maniacal crusade.

"We're going to pay the Karagan a visit."

**XXXXX**

"Jack…" he said. "Come on, man. Don't be like this."

Jack leaned back against the tree, hood over his head. He crossed his arms and stared down at the ground. "It's fine, Jamie. I get it."

Jamie Bennett approached his friend as a shadow on the springtime grass that dominated Jack's field of focus. "You're doing it again, dude."

Jack scowled. "Doing what?"

"Your whole 'I'm a middle-school girl who just got dumped after a two-week relationship' routine."

Jack finally looked up. "Need I remind you how we came up with that phrase in the first place?"

A smile flickered on Jamie's face. "Bygones, bro. Tracy was a mistake." He smiled, and added with a slight grin, "In more ways than one."

Jack turned away to hide his own creeping smile. "Whatever."

"Alright, quit it. We both know you're acting immature."

Jack stiffened. "Yeah, and I wonder how all these nice people think about how you're acting right now."

Jamie rolled his eyes. "You think I care? There are enough weirdos in Goldman Park, what's one more? Besides, I'm already Crazy Jamie at school. Why not extend my territory."

The nickname spurred anger in Jack's chest. "If you're leaving because of the bullies, I can fix that right now. Freeze their asses before they ever speak again-"

Jamie interrupted him. "Jack. It's not them. They're douchebags, but they don't matter. It's my choice to leave. No one's forcing me or pushing me away. I just want you to understand that."

Jack blinked away tears. "I understand that you don't want to see me again."

Jamie faltered. "You misunderstood me. What I said was that I wanted to take a break from our whole…thing, or whatever the hell it is. I want for a few years what you had for three hundred years."

Jack glowered at his friend. "Solitude. Loneliness."

"Space. Time to find myself. And don't lie: you had a blast for centuries being the Spirit of Winter."

"That was before I remembered my dead sister."

Jamie shook his head. "But this is different. I won't lose you, Jack. When I get back we'll raid the girl's locker room like last year, or throw snowballs at people when they're not paying attention. See? I'll always have you, and we can see each other again and have fun."

Jack bit his lip as tears threatened to spill from his eyes. Damn it, he thought. You promised yourself you wouldn't lose control. But as he said his next words, his hastily built control threatened to dismantle like a pyramid of cards under a winter gale. "But I won't always have you…" he whispered.

Jamie opened his mouth, but closed it. He had no words for that horrible yet inevitable truth, but by God he would try. "I know, Jack. I'm sorry. But there's Sophie, and my little cousins, who are starting to believe in you. Plus, I'll probably hook up with some smoking hot chick and have a dozen kids, and you can have fun with them when I'm long gone."

"It won't be the same."

"Of course it won't. But it'll be different. A good kind of different. A kind of different I'm trying to chase right now. Alright, bro?" Jamie clasped his shoulder. "Say you understand. Please."

Jack wiped his eyes. "I understand." Which was a lie, but there was nothing he could do. Jamie was set in his ways.

Jamie smiled. "Thank you."

Jack sniffed. "You better keep your promise and impregnate one hundred girls while you're there."

"Oh, you know me. I'm a ladies' man."

"Cough. Tracy. Cough."

"Oh shut up. Tell you what. Once I get a girlfriend, I'll send you some-"

The world froze.

_Flower gleam and glow. Let your power shine. Make the clock reverse. Bring back what once was mine…_

Jamie and the park began to fade in a golden haze.

_Heal what has been hurt. Change the fates design. Save what has been lost._

_ What once was mine._

The dreamscape dissolved into mere memory…

**XXXXX**

Jack woke up to the gentle warmth of fire.

"Jamie…" he muttered. He tried to get up.

"Lie down," said the voice. "Your wounds are healed, but you still need to rest."

Jack opened his eyes. Through his blurry vision he could see that he was in the hut he had found himself in after the battle with the cat. He was on his stomach, and instead of rough wool, he lay on a soft pillow and sheets. Jack turned his head.

Danak the healer smiled. His face, so intimidating at first, looked kinder in the torchlight. "You are finally awake."

"What happened?"

"You don't remember?"

Jack frowned. "I don't…"

Danak rested a hand on his shoulder. "You will."

The old man slid his hand to Jack's back, and the touch rekindled the memory.

The little wooden post.

Ash.

The whip.

Screaming.

Jack shuddered. "Oh," he whispered. "Oh my God."

"The master has quite a temper. It is a miracle you survived his punishment at all."

Jack began to tremble. Danak's brow furrowed in concern and he sidled closer to him, tucking the blankets over his pale form. "It's okay," he said. "You are safe now. Ashanagarethanarak has more to worry about than you mouthing off."

Jack shut his eyes, but even in darkness he could see Ash standing over him and whipping him over and over again until the pain was nearly unbearable. He could not stop shaking. "I don't know what's happening to me."

"You are in shock," the healer explained. "It tends to happen after something like that. Your wounds have been healed so the recovery will quicken."

"The wounds were nothing."

"Then what was it?"

Jack opened his eyes. They were wet with sudden tears.

"His words."

Danak nodded. "Ah."

"The pain I could take. And if I couldn't, I'd take it anyway. I wasn't going to let him have the pleasure of seeing me break." Jack wiped his eyes. "But when he started talking, it's like he could see right through me. All my fears and weaknesses were laid bare to the world. That I couldn't take."

"You have suffered much."

"You can tell that easily?"

"It is my job to decide whether a patient is in pain or not. In your case, Moon Child, it is plain as day. It is on your face. Hidden away behind your eyes in a place where you think it is safe from discovery. But if you look hard enough you can see it lurking there, like a tumor. The master saw it, and he used it to his advantage. It is one of his gifts." Danak leaned forward. "But the master is not the only one with valuable skills."

Jack sat up, wearing nothing but his trousers. He craned his head to look at his back. While pale, it was incredibly unmarred. There was not a trace of the pain from before. It was extraordinary, and Jack's mind reeled. "How long ago was I whipped?"

"More than forty-eight hours."

"Then how…?" Jack shook his head. "I don't understand."

Danak smiled. "Allow me to explain."

The old healer reached down to pick something up off the floor. He brought it up so that Jack could see. "Do you understand now?"

Cradled between Danak's gentle palms was a small clay pot, and rooted within that pot, in the center of rich, black soil, was a golden flower.

Jack stared in awe. The flower was glowing. It was not reflecting the light from the torch fire, but it shone with a light of its own, like a little sun burned within the heart of its petals. It's presence bathed the small hut with an ethereal haze, and from that point on Jack knew that this was more than a simple flower.

This was something that had the power to change the world

"I've seen this before," he murmured. He could not take his eyes off of it. "Every noon we were released from our cage and sent to look for this flower in the forest. I always wondered why it was so special…"

"This flower healed you, Moon Child," Danak whispered. He too stared with wonder at the flower. He spoke with a reverential tone, low and hushed and full of emotion. "I have been this village's healer for thirty-four seasons, but not even I could mend your injuries so quickly. It would have taken you weeks, months even, for your body to repair itself to full strength. It was the master's intention to kill your friends in the cage during that time, Moon Child. He wanted your suffering to increase a hundredfold. You had little chance against his evil." Danak held up the flower. "This evened the odds."

"But how…?" Jack could not fully understand the fact that this flower – no matter how wondrous it looked and felt – had completely mended his wounds as if they were never there. It was just too much to comprehend. "That isn't possible."

"This island holds many secrets, Jack, but this is its most treasured one. The sun's gift to the earth and her children. Within it lies the power to reverse what is to what had once been. To change the very fabric of reality, to deny the tide of Time itself. This flower saved you. This flower is everything."

The healer set the flower down and gripped Jack with a sudden, fervent gaze. "This is why we need you, Moon Child. If Ashanagarethanarak gets what he wants, there is no stopping him from ruling the entire island forever."

Jack looked away, embarrassed by the passion in Danak's words. "I don't know if I can do that."

Danak shook his head. "You must. It is foretold in the scroll of prophecy." His voice changed, as if reciting from memory. "'Child of the moon, come to right the wrongs of the world. All the world bathed in ice and fire.' All occurs as it should. There is no stopping it. The cycle turns and turns until the end of time."

"I just…I need time to think about this. Everything is happening too fast. I can't wrap my head around it."

"There is no time. The Breaking fast approaches. I must bring you to the Garden. There, you will finally understand the secrets of this island…"

* * *

**A/N: Drop a review on your way out!**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Thanks for all the kind words. Another, just for y'all. (Warning: There is an instance of strong language, but it is over very quickly. Just a word of caution, though)**

* * *

Dusk fell over the island as Ezekiel and Aleksander made their preparations and left the cave. The king carried a small pack filled with dried fruit, herbs, and two water canteens, while the castaway merely held on to his bow. Ezekiel had given him a crude leather vest to wear over his thin shirt, and while it was little protection against the cold, he was grateful for the extra layer of clothing.

They stopped at the edge of the small pond. Aleksander took a deep breath. He could smell the forest on the twilight breeze as it rolled over the treetops and grass stalks and passed over his face. Its caress helped clear his mind to think.

"Having second thoughts?" said Ezekiel. He was tightening his bowstring and staring at his blank expression in the water's reflection.

"No," said Aleksander. He adjusted the pack over his shoulders. "I'm just…thinking."

"You can kill yourself doing that."

Aleksander smiled "You speak from experience?"

Ezekiel grunted, slung the bow over his shoulder, and looked at the king. "The Karagan have a saying: _Ekáraga lan morgra._ The careless man is soon a corpse." He smiled grimly. "On this island, the only time to stop and think is when you are absolutely certain you are safe. Out here," he gestured at the circle of dark underbrush. "There is no certainty. Ninety-percent of the things on this island want to eat you. And that's including the humans. From now on, until we reach the Karagan village, there will be no instances of deep thought, yes? Only action."

Aleksander nodded. "I understand."

Ezekiel stared at him for a moment longer. He then returned a nod of his own, apparently satisfied with whatever he saw in the king. "There's not a moment to waste then."

Ezekiel walked into the forest, and Aleksander followed.

Aleksander and Jack always had the fire and the gas lamp to illuminate their surroundings, but deprived of those things, the king was beginning to realize just how dark the forest became in the night. The sun bled out on the edge of the horizon, barely visible through the dense canopy, and as it disappeared, it was getting harder and harder for Aleksander to see. He cursed as his foot caught on a root and he nearly fell. Ezekiel grabbed his shoulder to steady him.

"Stay close to me," he said. "I've walked this route so many times I could do it blindfolded." He chuckled. "Which isn't very different from right now, to be honest."

As they walked, and as the sun finally tipped over the ocean, it came to the point where Aleksander could barely see his own hand wave in front of his face. The only point of illumination was the rising moon, but even that was being filtered by the thick treetops. Night fell, and the night creatures awoke. The forest was vibrant with sounds just as raucous as they were in the day. Deep hoots and curious whistles like a symphony of eerie fauna that reigned over a festival of alien night. Aleksander was unnerved; he kept on picturing blazing ochre eyes rushing out of the shadows and eating him alive.

"I've hunted in forests before," Aleksander said, out of breath. The long walk of silence was too much for him to bear. "Arendelle, Austerland, Corona. I've gutted boars, shot down stags, and trapped foxes in their dens. Believe me, I know my forests. But this island is unlike anything in all of creation. It is ungodly and unholy and I wish to see it destroyed."

Ezekiel's voice came from an indistinct black bur bobbing just ahead of the king in the night. "I thought the same the first few years. The Karagan actually put me in a cell after I tried to set fire to the forest. But you learn to appreciate its savagery after a long stay. It's messy and horrible, but there's a no-nonsense efficiency to it all that I can admire. I doubt the royal lifestyle is any less brutal."

Aleksander wiped his forehead. "Snotty dukes and entitled duchesses I can deal with. But this? This is different."

"I thought we weren't going to be thinking this hard."

"I'm not thinking. I'm speaking."

"I can see the results of your world-class education."

"Oh blast your philosophy." Aleksander jogged to catch up with the damnably quick Ezekiel. He feared every step would send him closer to falling flat on his face. "I can't stand silence. I was born to talk. How do you think I make my way through treasury council meetings?"

"Talking, I imagine."

"Exactly! You wouldn't believe the number of hours I wasted every time I was summoned to one of those damn things. I have begun to think that they hold them just for a way to get back at me for docking their pay. They blabber on and on about foreign exchange rates and revenues while I just say some random tidbit that sounds intelligent and sit there for an entire age. It's mind-bogglingly tedious."

"Being king must be so difficult."

Aleksander didn't miss the sarcasm. "Oh alright, I know that sounded terribly arrogant. But even so, I'd attend a thousand council meetings if I could see my country and family again."

"And going up against the most terrifying individual I've ever had the displeasure of shaking hands with is the quickest way home." Ezekiel sighed. "Right."

"The odds may be against us, my friend, but I have the utmost confidence that we will succeed."

"You've never met Ashanagarethanarak. You don't know what he's like. If you did you wouldn't be so damn cheery."

Aleksander shrugged. "Maybe so, but I have been witness to evil before. It can always be overcome."

The despair in Ezekiel's voice was unsettling. "Not like this."

They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence after that.

They crossed a stream a while later. The cold water was a shock to Aleksander's system, and he rushed ahead of Ezekiel to get out of the icy flow. "Heavens that's freezing," he gasped. He hopped lightly on the opposite bank. "It's not supposed to be so cold."

Ezekiel splashed his way to Aleksander's side and shrugged one shoulder. "Nothing is normal on this island. I thought you caught on to that a while ago."

"Have you ever figured out why that is?" Aleksander asked as they resumed their trek. "The Karagan must have taught you many things during your fifteen-year stay."

"I learned their culture: the language and their customs. I learned how to properly spread fishing nets and gut a fish before feasting. I learned how to grind certain medicinal herbs in order to heal a wound or ease a sickness. I learned that Sister Moon and Brother Earth were once one, and that Father Sun helped bring life into existence countless ages ago. I learned of Chief Warakad and the journey across distant seas to reach this island, which he named Voyagan. I learned of the Children of Sky and their ancient nests in the mountaintops. I learned of the olive-skinned invaders, the Fair Ones, and their oppressive rule over the Three Tribes. I learned of the Retaking and the eventual coming of the Oathbreaker. I learned all these things, and yet I have never learned why this island is the way it is."

Aleksander was stunned. "Surely you asked."

"Of course I asked. I'm insatiably curious. But each time I dared question them, they would shut me out. You see, Aleksander, we are outsiders to their ways. After what happened with the Fair Ones and the Oathbreaker they do not give their trust to strangers so easily. I was able to gain it after fifteen years of serving under them, but even then they would not divulge all of their secrets. That is why I am worried about how they will receive you once we arrive at their camp. They might kill you before you ever lay eyes on your loved ones again."

"Don't worry about me. I'll negotiate my way into their good graces."

Ezekiel scoffed. "Look at you. So bloody optimistic. You may be able to sweet-talk your way out of treasury council meetings, your highness, but the Karagan play by a different set of rules. They care little for what comes out of the mouth." He suddenly flexed his arm and smacked his sinewy bicep. "_Jukar-wa._ Prove your worth. You will have to do more than tongue-wag in order to convince the Karagan to take up arms against their estranged brethren."

Aleksander bit his lip. "Perhaps. But make no mistake, I will try."

"Of course you'll try. That's all you ever do. Nothing ever really gets your hopes down, huh? It's come to the point where the only thing I can think of that can ever bring you down is…"

He trailed off and slowed to a stop,

Aleksander frowned. They were still deep in the forest, reaching vines and trees gnarled like a crone's limbs all around them. "What is it?"

Ezekiel brought his finger to his lips.

"You can't just leave it like that. I won't be able to sleep without knowing how you're going to finish that statement."

Ezekiel glared at him.

The king huffed and looked around. He could hear and see nothing save for the leaves and branches swaying occasionally in the night wind. "What do you hear that I can't?"

Ezekiel swore and reached for his bow. "Duck."

"Where?"

"I said duck!"

Ezekiel shoved the king to the side. Aleksander fell to the ground and hit his head on a thick root. He cried out and nursed the pain. "What was that-?"

An arrow thudded into the ground by his face. He stared at it for a moment, shocked. Ezekiel crouched low to the short grass and shot an arrow of his own into the dark shadows around them. A small cry sounded from somewhere nearby. Ezekiel went on all fours like a beast and narrowed his eyes at the distance separating them from their unexpected attackers. "Dalagan hunting party. A dozen of them, maybe more."

Aleksander scrambled over to join Ezekiel. The sudden shift between mind-numbing boredom and heart-stopping terror was too much for the king to handle. He clutched at his belly as he blinked the sweat from his eyes. "My liver isn't going to survive this…"

"None of us is going to survive this if we don't make a run for it."

Aleksander snorted. "Make a run for it? They'll shoot us down like ptarmigans."

Ezekiel cursed. "You're right. We'll have to make a stand."

"There must be some option other than certain death!"

Ezekiel scowled at him. "I thought you were a king."

Aleksander blushed. "If I had Daemon with me, I'd be cutting down these heathens with ease, but at the moment I'm unarmed and weary and-!"

Ezekiel pulled his short knife out of the pouch at his waist and handed it to Aleksander. "There. You're armed."

Aleksander slowly took the little weapon from his grasp and sighed. "Perfect."

Ezekiel stood and launched another arrow into the underbrush with the quickness of a cobra. He was rewarded with another cry, although it sounded much closer this time. They were closing in on them with worrying speed.

"I thought this was Karagan territory," Aleksander said. He nervously twirled the knife in his hand. "What's a Dalagan hunting party doing on enemy soil?"

Ezekiel ducked as another arrow hissed dangerously close to his head. "The reason escapes me, yet I have the sneaking suspicion that they're here to kill you."

"Determined bastards."

"Spearman, to your right."

Aleksander whirled.

A tall hunter was bearing down on him, javelin raised and a warbling war cry issuing from his lips. His heart beating a violent, staccato rhythm, Aleksander dove forward just as the weapon sailed harmlessly over his shoulder. He got within the hunter's space and sliced at the man's huge torso twice. Blood spurted from the wounds, but the savage just snarled and brought his arms up for a bear tackle. Aleksander stepped closer into his rush and stabbed the knife under his chin. The man gurgled and tried to grapple him, but Aleksander twisted the knife until he choked and went limp in his arms. The king threw his body aside and wiped the blade on his trousers.

He turned around to see Ezekiel weaving around three of the Dalagan like a wolf among sheep. The archer fired an arrow short-range at one of the hunters, and before that hunter could even fall to the ground, Ezekiel moved forward, ripped the arrow from his sternum, and sliced its freshly-sharpened head across another's throat. The dark-skinned man fell back, clutching at his opened carotid. The last hunter roared and brought down a jagged obsidian blade upon Ezekiel's head. Ezekiel sidestepped the blow and kneed him in the groin. The hunter grunted and dropped the blade, and it did not even touch the soil before Ezekiel snaked an arm around his neck and twisted roughly. There was a crack, and the man hung limp and lifeless in his arms. Ezekiel released the hunter, kicked him aside, and fitted the bloody arrow into his bow.

He looked at Aleksander. "I change my mind. We run!"

And so they ran.

They did not even make it twenty feet when four hunters appeared in front of them, weapons raised. Two of them were archers, and both fired at Ezekiel. Sensing the move before they had even let their arrows fly, he dropped down to a forward role mid-run. The arrows sailed above his head and hit the trees behind him. He returned to his feet right in front of the surprised hunters, and he dispatched one of them with a quick jab to the throat. The other tried to shoot him with another arrow, but Ezekiel tore it from his hands like paper and drove it deep into the hunter's heart.

The other two rushed at Aleksander. The king crouched low, feet shoulder-width, eyes wide and breath quick. He'd practiced this scenario so many times with his personal guard, but at the moment of execution, his mind was a blank. He remembered the maneuver just as the first warrior lifted his sword to strike.

Aleksander dodged to the left, distancing himself from both attackers. He brought the knife forward in two timed, almost lazy strokes. The hunter stumbled back in pain, crashing into his brother in the process. The king leapt towards them and stabbed the injured hunter in quick succession, aiming for the center of his chest. Before the remaining hunter could push the corpse off of him, Ezekiel moved behind him and cut open his throat with an arrowhead.

"You fight well for a pampered royal!" Ezekiel yelled with a maniacal grin on his blood-stained face. "You might last the night!"

Aleksander threw his knife at him.

Ezekiel's eyes widened and he ducked just in time for the circling blade to sink deep into the Dalagan bowman's forehead. The tall warrior's eyes, a ghostly white against the darkness, rolled over in his head and he fell like a marionette cut loose from his strings.

Aleksander had the energy to throw the disturbed Ezekiel a wink.

Ezekiel laughed.

There was a blur in the periphery of Aleksander's vision. He turned, but it was too late to dodge. The hunter, who had come out from behind a tree, smashed the club on the king's head.

Stars flew.

Aleksander cried out and fell to the forest floor. He opened his eyes, and in the chaos of his agonized vision, he saw the hunter straddle him, cast the heavy wooden club aside, and wrap his beefy hands around his throat. They were like steel pincers around his neck, warm and unyielding. Aleksander choked and gripped the man's hands, trying to free himself from his form hold, but he would not let go.

Damn it, he thought with rising fear.

He squirmed and attempted to buck the hunter off of his waist, but the heavyset man only smirked and squeezed harder.

Aleksander couldn't breathe. Blackness hugged the edges of his sight, and his attempts to free himself were getting weaker and weaker by the second.

No, he thought. He punched at the hunter's arms, but to no avail. I refuse to die like this. I refuse to die without keeping my promise.

But the hunter was not letting him go. Soon enough, Aleksander only lay back, his arms at his sides, as the Dalagan throttled the life out of him.

Faces faded into sight in his mind's eye. The faces that mattered, the faces that returned to him on the threshold of death. Robert, Bror, the other sailors who died in the storm or survived only to be captured by the Oathbreaker. His people, the nobles and commoners that he ruled over and loved.

Anna, with her bright hair and smile, so eager to please and love all she came across.

Elsa, so calm and dignified, yet tortured by a curse she did not ask for yet must forever bear.

Elana. His wife. His beloved. He pleaded for her forgiveness as his vision faded, as his breath escaped him.

Jack…

His companion in grief.

His friend.

I'm sorry.

Aleksander closed his eyes and waited to die.

And then suddenly the immovable hands were gone.

The weight lifted from him, and he could _breathe._ He could open his mouth and take in sweet and precious air. His lungs were filled with it in one desperate gasp, and he sat up, inhaling it for all he was worth. Aleksander coughed and blinked tears from his eyes.

The large hunter was splayed on the ground, an arrow in his thick throat. His dark, squinty eyes were open wide in eternal confusion. Aleksander shoved the corpse away and looked upon his saviors.

The Karagan looked very much the same as the Dalagan, but instead of violent red and yellow paint they wore a more tranquil yet firm blue, like the blue of the ocean, vast and unchanging. Ten of them, tall and thinner than their inland brethren, stood a ways off, bows raised. Aleksander regarded them for a moment, not knowing what to say. He looked to his side and found Ezekiel standing not ten feet away, arms raised and surrounded by five dead Dalagan with arrows sticking out of them pincushions.

Ezekiel, arms still raised, bowed low and said a quick phrase in their native tongue. The Karagan did not respond.

Aleksander wiped his mouth. "Thank you. We would not have survived without-"

The moment he spoke one of the hunters fired his arrow. The projectile flew by Aleksander's face, so close he could feel the air rush by his ear, and stuck on the ground behind him. The Karagan barked out a word in the same foreign language.

"What did I-?"

"Shut up!" Ezekiel hissed. "Did I not tell you that they were extremely suspicious of outsiders? Keep quiet and let me explain before you end up like these Dalagan."

Aleksander kept his mouth shut – against all instinct – and waited for Ezekiel to explain everything in the Karagan's tongue. The hunters' dark faces remained expressionless the whole time. The king's heart resumed its quickened beat as he once more found his life in another man's hands.

When Ezekiel was done talking, one of the hunters grunted and waved them over. Ezekiel let loose a heavy sigh of relief. He walked forward and pulled Aleksander to his feet. "We were lucky there," the old archer said. "The last time the Karagan met an outsider other than myself they stuck him full of arrows and fed him to the sea."

Aleksander paled. "There were others?"

"Most of the shipwrecks occur on the Dalagan side of the island, but those hapless few who manage to escape the Dalagan but venture into Karagan territory are not tolerated. The Karagan would rather kill the escapee than incur the wrath of the Oathbreaker. I was the first to come to their lands, but I was the last one they kept alive."

"And you're just telling me this now?"

"Prioritization, your highness. Watch your head."

Aleksander frowned and opened his mouth, but one of the Karagan walked up to him and roughly tied a blindfold over his eyes before he could object. The king sputtered and tried to untie it, but the warrior then took his arms, placed them behind his back, and tied them as well. Aleksander could see nothing through the thick, tough cloth. "Ezekiel!" he cried, suddenly afraid of the unwelcome darkness.

"Don't worry. They did the same to me. This is good news!"

"How is this good news?" Aleksander asked as the Karagan pushed him forward, and they all began to walk.

"It means they're taking us to their camp. We've finally made it."

**XXXXX**

The dinner was roasted fowl.

The skin was crunchy and perfectly crisped, and the white meat underneath it was rich and full of exotic flavor. Biting into it felt good and swallowing it down and feeling it slide into her stomach was even better.

"You like it?" asked Ash from across the table.

Elana ignored him and continued to eat.

"This silence won't do," he said. He rested his elbows on the table and leaned over towards her with a frown on his face. "I miss our conversations."

Elana sniffed and merely cut into the meat and ate.

"You look wonderful tonight."

Ash had given her a new dress to wear before they sat to eat. He had turned his back while she hastily removed her old clothes and slipped into the new one, disturbed at the fact that the scarlet dress fit her so perfectly, as if it was custom-tailored for her. It was a gorgeous dress, one made for elegant balls and royal galas, but her current state did not compliment its beauty. She was dirty and sweaty and she was as out of place in it as her host was to the world.

She did not reply to his compliment.

"Ah," said Ash as in reaching an epiphany. He wagged his finger at her. "I think I know what this is all about. It's about what I did to the Moon Child, isn't it?"

Elana stopped.

"He was screaming," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "He was screaming and you were yelling out words as you whipped him."

Ash sighed. "I'm not proud of what I did. As much as it might seem like it, I don't enjoy hurting people. But there are things that must be deemed necessary in order to reaffirm faith. It was a teaching moment for my people, nothing more. The young man will recover in due time."

Elana closed her eyes. She had not seen the boy – Jack – accept the punishment, but she had heard it. She had heard him screaming and the ugly slap of the whip against open flesh had caused her to wince as if she was the one on the receiving end. His cries had made her soul ache in pity. She did not like it when others were in pain. She considered it her responsibility if she had the power to stop it.

But all Elana had done while Jack had been tortured was lie inside her cage and weep like a babe. The memory shamed her.

"You are a queen," he followed, watching her with a careful gaze. "Surely you know where I stand. I do not doubt that you and your husband had to do terrible things for the greater good."

Elana glared at him. "There is no greater good. There is only good and evil and the line you set to divide them."

"You are saying, then, that you would spare a criminal the appropriate punishment and let chaos run rampant on your streets?"

"I am saying that whatever semblance of order you have concocted here is not worth the agony of one soul. You call yourself a father, act like one."

Ash leaned back. "Fathers must punish wayward children."

"Jack is neither your child nor is he a criminal and a prisoner." Elana leaned forward and fixed him a lethal look. "None of us are."

Ash laughed. His dark eyes danced with amusement. "You have reclaimed your fire. It looks good on you, adds color to your cheeks."

"Ashanagarethanarak…" she said. The invocation of his name seemed to cast an otherworldly stillness over the room. Her fingers clutched the edge of the small table. "We have done you no wrong. Let us go…please."

Ash closed his eyes and took in a deep breath at the word.

"It pains me to see you like this." he said quietly. "You know I care deeply for you."

Elana reached over and took his hand. The man hardened at the sudden contact but soon relaxed under it. She rubbed his hand and his skin was soft and warm to touch.

"If you cared for me then you would release me and those I care about. Only then will I be happy and you will be at rest knowing this is so."

Ash opened his eyes, eyes gleaming like water under sunset light, and he covered her hand with his other. "Oh Elana. How could I ever let you go when you are right where I need you to be? Right here with me."

Elana's gut churned with nervousness. His touch seemed too possessive, like she had been a prize at a game where the stake was life and nothing else. She tried to remove her hand from his hold, but he would not let go. "You are wrong."

"I could not be more right."

"I am a queen and my own woman and not yours to control."

Ash shook his head. "You're deceiving yourself. The moment I let you go you will scamper off into the forest full of dangers in search of your false king. You say that you are your own woman, but in truth, all you are doing is escaping one man's ownership and walking straight into another's."

Elana stiffened at the insult. "You know nothing about love, do you?"

Ash tilted his head, caught by surprise. "I don't?"

"You pretend like you are a romantic. You set up the candles and the dinner and you say sweet words any young girl would love to hear, but you're just an ignorant fool. You know nothing of the relationship between Aleksander and I. We love each other, and we are equals in each other's eyes. That you will never understand, Ashanagarethanarak."

Ash's face remained virtually emotionless, save for a hint of curiosity, but Elana did not fail to notice the slight twitch of his left eye as she finished her words. A smile appeared on his face, but it bore no genuine feeling.

"Call me Ash."

Elana nodded and made to take her hand away from him but he suddenly took her wrist in a firm grip.

Elana frowned. "Unhand me."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I like the contact, the warmth. I like to feel the pulse of your veins because it is as if I can touch your heart. I like this togetherness."

Elana wanted to recoil in disgust. His words seemed straight out of a two-shilling romance novel, but the emotion behind them was not love. It was something ugly, something profane, and it slithered under her skin like a parasite. "Let me go."

"I do not want to let you go. I want you to stay here with me forever."

Elana began to shake. The parasite was hissing and burrowing further into her until she wanted to vomit. "You are a monster."

Ash's eyes were glazed over and unfocused. Elana looked into them and finally understood the severity of the situation. She was being held captive by a man who was completely and utterly out of his mind.

"My love is so great that it seems monstrous," he said with a passion that failed to kindle the same in Elana. "But you will learn to appreciate it in time. You will learn to return it because you will be my queen and we will rule over this island together after the man you call your husband is finally slain-"

Elana slapped him.

The sound was like a gunshot in the heady and still atmosphere of the room. Elana was breathing heavily, her cheeks red with anger and humiliation. How could she have let things go so far? How had she let things descend in such a way? She had entertained this madness for far too long and now she was paying the consequence.

Ash blinked.

He released Elana, who bolted out of her chair and rain straight for the door, while he lightly stroked the red mark on his cheek that was shaped like an open hand. His eyes were wide and disbelieving.

"Help me!" she screamed as she pounded on the door. The wood frame shook under the blows but no one was answering her. "Let me out!"

She lifted her fist to pound the door one more time but was suddenly grabbed from behind. Elana screamed as Ash pulled her back from the exit with a force so unlike the tender care he had placed on her moments before. Elana was thrown to the warm wooden floor by his suddenly tremendous strength.

"You bitch," he snarled, a terrible fury darkening his face like the black clouds of a storm. His beauty was so contorted that no longer was there trace of it, and all that was left was a hideous rage. "You ungrateful little bitch."

Elana, heart pounding, tried to get up, but Ash kicked her as she did so. She cried out and clutched her belly and fell back to the floor. It hurt so much that tears welled up in the corners of her tightly shut eyes.

Ash looked down on her. His upper lip was curled in disgust and he was breathing hard.

"I tried to woo you. I did everything I could. I took you in from the beach and brought you here. I refused to give you over to my men for their pleasure. I chose to invite you to my home and make you food and give you comfort. I ignored your dirtiness and your rancid odor and how ugly your face became when you wept. Oh and how you wept! How you wept for your dear Aleksander and your miserable little daughters whom you will never see again. You squealed like a pig before the slaughter and I wanted to throttle you to shut you up but I suffered through it all because I knew I would have you in the end."

Ash crouched down and twisted his hand in her hair. Elana screamed and held his wrist as he pulled her up to his face so that his lips grazed her ear. "But you remain stubborn," he hissed. "You still believe your beloved will come save you. Even after I imprisoned your men and broke the Moon Child you still have hope."

He spit on her face.

She began to weep.

Ash snorted and threw her down to the floor again like a sack of garbage. He stood up as she curled into a shivering ball. "Tears will not help you, Elana. Nothing will help you except for your complete and total surrender."

Elana's world was black with streaks of bright color that was the pain of her body and her soul. Everything hurt, but she still had the strength to uncurl from her position and rise shakily to her knees. Ash stood before her like a jealous icon, dark and brooding and absolutely terrifying in the light of the torch fire.

He nodded. "I knew you had strength left yet. You are a strong woman, and that is why I chose you when I refused so many others over the years."

Elana remembered the bizarre shrine, and the little lockets full of tiny portraits of beautiful women. Had they been in her position before? Had they suffered the same illusion of love and eventual despair? A pang of horror struck her.

Was she standing above their buried bones?

Anger enveloped her. She saw red.

The queen howled in rage and guilt and raked her nails across his cheek. Ash screamed and stumbled back, clutching at the bleeding, torn flesh. But Elana did not stop. She fell upon him and rained blows on his face, his arms, his bare chest, and she no longer minded the pain because the absolute and utter hatred she felt for this man had overwhelmed her. She screamed and screamed as she hit and hit and Ash cursed and howled as she bruised and cut his skin.

Elana swiped at his eyes, but Ash recovered from the initial shock. He nimbly dodged her nails and punched her in the face.

It was like the moon had fallen and struck her below her eye. She gasped at the pain and fell back, but Ash grabbed her by the strap of her dress and pulled her back with such force that the cloth ripped in his hand. He slapped her with all the strength he could muster and she went flying back from the blow. Before she could fall, however, he rushed forward, twisted his hand in her hair again, and commenced to drag her towards the door. She struggled, but her motions were feeble, for her fire was extinguished.

"Cursed woman!" he snarled as he kicked open the door. The wood tore from its hinges like cardboard. He pulled her past the threshold and into the stifling warmth of the night. He would not realize until later that it was his anger alone that raised the temperature of the village by a dozen degrees. He dragged her down the stairs, uncaring if she banged her legs against the rough wood.

The guards parted before him, shocked by not only the battered queen but by the red and open wounds on their master's flesh, as he stepped off the stairs and onto hard soil. He dragged her towards the cage, where the prisoners had moved to the bars in order to get a closer look at the commotion. When they saw the source, they immediately began to shout.

Ash ignored their curses and protests and pushed the queen into the waiting arms of Sakaz. The mountainous guard caught Elana and held her like a ragdoll in his hands.

"_Tolak kaina_," Ash said with a sneer. "Put this dog back in her cage."

Sakaz nodded. He threw open the door and shoved her into her prison, where she fell like a limp corpse, arms splayed and almost unmoving save for the subtle rise and fall of her chest. Ash noted this with satisfaction. Good. She was alive. There was still something to be salvaged from her disobedience.

He moved to head into the forest to heal himself.

"You run! Run before I come over there and show you what we do to woman-beating bastards back in Arendelle!"

Ash whirled. "What did you call me?"

An old, grey-haired sailor stared back at him with open anger. He jabbed his finger at him and spat on the ground. "That's right. I called you a woman-beating bastard because that's what you are. You're a lowlife, the scum of the earth. There's a place in damnation reserved for people like you."

Ash's left eye twitched.

"Sakaz!"

The guard opened the door, blocking the way with his huge bulk as some of the men tried to escape, reached in, and grabbed the sailor by the collar and dragged him out. The old man resisted, but he was weak, and Sakaz was strong, and soon he was being thrown down to the forest floor. Sakaz shut the door and locked it. The men clutched at the bars and shook the cage and called out his name with worry but they knew that there was nothing to be done.

Ash approached him. "Bror, isn't it?" he said. Sakaz growled as the man got to his feet and made to push him back down, but Ash lifted a hand. The guard froze, but he continued to simmer and glare at the old man.

Bror the boatswain stood to his full height, which was nearly a head shorter than Ash, and still somehow managed to look down at him. "Yes," he said with pride. But there was a tremor there, the unmistakable hint of fear, and Ash latched on to that with delight.

"You have family, Bror?"

Bror hesitated before answering, and that was all Ash needed.

"You have family," he said, nodding as if in sympathy. "Of course you have family. An elderly man like you must have scores of children, and those children must have families of their own. Such is the way of your people."

Bror looked straight ahead, refusing to look into Ash's eyes, but Ash saw the shimmer of unshed tears hanging there, just waiting to be unleashed. Ash smiled, and with the raw scars on his face still open for all to see, it made for a horrifying sight.

"But a mariner like you must be gone from home for quite a long time. Months, years even. I'd wager that you have been on the seas for most of your life, and this fact is embedded in your very soul. I'd go on to say that because of this, you have very little family, or none at all. You know where you true love lies, and as you ride upon her waves to the end of your days, you know that you can have little attachment on her sister the land."

Bror's lips began to shake. Ash moved closer until he was within a foot away and staring down at the old man with wide-eyed amusement. He was having fun watching this grim-faced survivor break like eroded rock.

"But men have urges," he said. "I know I do. And your urges must have led you to make a mistake once or twice, and I am guessing one of these mistakes ended up with a child in your arms and nowhere to put it. I can picture it in my head: you sitting on a loading crate by the harbor, cradling a little baby as it cries for the milk of a mother it will never see in its short, pathetic life."

Ash's heart soared as Bror began to cry.

"My father always said I had a good imagination."

"Fuck you to all seven hells."

"But this sailor has a heart after all!" Ash continued, the man's insults passing like muted whispers by his ears. "He cannot let this child perish! Not while he is alive to stop it. So the sailor returns home and finds a place for this child to be raised while he pursues his love and masters his craft, but always he makes sure this child is safe. Always he returns and embraces this child and indulges its innocent tales of wonder and fun and he never fails to bring a souvenir from his long travels, something for the child to remember him by as he goes off on another journey once more."

He leaned in close for a whisper. "But the child is alone. The shopkeepers are kind, the street urchins are friendly, but what the child needs is a father. But the father is always gone, and the souvenirs provide the child comfort, but it is not enough."

"The devil take you, you sick bastard."

"The child grows up, but is wayward. The child has lost direction, and whenever the father returns, the child seems more different, more distant. Soon, the child is old enough to make its own decisions, and the decisions the child makes do not please the father. The father is angry. The father is _guilty. _And only now does the father realize the price he paid when he chose to save the child long ago. But by then, it is too late, and now the father must watch the child that he loves descend into inescapable darkness."

By the time Ash was finished Bror's head hung low, and he was sobbing silently. Ash propped up the sailor's greasy chin with a finger and stared with mock concern into his wet eyes. "Daughter?"

The boatswain's sobs intensified. Ash nodded to himself, pleased with the approximation. "Of course it was a daughter. What women do in our lives, Bror. They make us ruin ourselves, turn away from our natural course of dominance and power. You must love her very much for you to weep like this, my friend."

Bror nodded. "She's all I have…" he said amidst his tears.

Ash shook his head. "I know, I know. And you're all she has. You are distant now, but your love for each other remains strong. Like a thick strand of rope, rigging for the sails, that cannot be broken."

Ash cupped the sailor's face with his hands and looked into his eyes for the last time.

"Now feel it burn to ash."

Bror burst into flames.

The sailor opened his mouth to scream but was lost in the conflagration of his body. Ash stepped back, spread his arms, and watched the blackening thing writhe under the embrace of the flames with awe and wonder, and all he could think about as it finally died to the chorus of his friends' cries was how devastated Bror's sweet daughter would be when given news of her father's death, and how her sadness and despair and emptiness made him smile.

**XXXXX**

Jack rose up from his bed. "What the hell was that?"

Danak shushed him. "It is nothing. Go back to sleep. You need to rest for the journey tomorrow."

Jack frowned at the door, but reluctantly lay back down on the bed. "Sounded like someone was screaming."

Danak tucked the blankets over him. Although Jack was not cold and never would be cold, he let him do so anyway, a little annoyed but grateful for the worry. "It is not uncommon here," the healer explained. "The master has found many crimes to punish when in a foul mood."

"Yeah, but…" Jack blinked at the dull ceiling, something unpleasant churning in his gut. "I thought the voice sounded familiar. Like I've heard it before."

Danak processed this for a moment. Concern flicked over his wrinkled face, but he faked a smile when Jack turned to look at him. "It is nothing, boy. Go to sleep."

Jack frowned absently for a while, dark thoughts entertained in his head, but finally he consented and lay down to sleep.

A little while later he spoke up again:

"Hey Danak?"

"Yes?"

"Is something burning?"

A shift in the dark.

"Danak? Hello? You there? I asked you a question."

"No. Nothing is burning."

"But…"

"Sleep now. We have a long day ahead of us."

"Okay, but I swear I smell something burning…"

**XXXXX**

They led Aleksander like a sightless man further out from the jungle's center. It was even darker with the blindfold on, and he had to rely on the silent Karagan hunters for help. Because of his blindness he was very cautious with his steps, but the hunters were impatient, and each time he slowed they grunted and pushed him forward. Ezekiel tried to get them to stop, but apparently he was not as close with them as he had made it seem.

They treated him with a cold tolerance that hinted at some uneasy past. Fifteen years was a long time to earn not just respect but dislike from a society, especially a society as small and isolated as the island's. They had instructed him in their ways, yes, but Aleksander was beginning to think that he was not well loved.

At least by these hunters, he thought to himself as they led him onwards.

Ezekiel and the hunters conversed politely but distantly in the native tongue. Many of the hunters' replies were monosyllabic and said with a trace of annoyance. Ezekiel just babbled on and asked question after question, serving to increase their irritation.

"How long until we reach their camp?" Aleksander said.

"We're here."

The blindfold was removed from his sweaty head and he could finally see.

They were standing at the edge of the jungle, overlooking the sandy beach and endless expanse of moving ocean. The camp was quite large, stretching from one end of the beach to a few hundred yards from where the entourage was. Fires blazed in dugout pits far from the water, and little canoes were slowly rocking from where they were tied to a wooden post by a pocket of boulders jutting from the oncoming tide. Dozens upon dozens of tents sat across the beach, with their own lights illuminating the interior and shedding shifting silhouettes against the tan material.

Women and children gathered around the camp, with the men standing guard armed with spears and shields of animal hide. They sat around the fire and ate their dinners, many of the children playing on the sand or even in the shallows (watched carefully by their mothers). The smell of cooked fish made his stomach grumble.

They led him down into the village, where he caught the eye of every inhabitant he passed. Conversation and laughter died as he walked further and further into the privacy of their lives. The judging look in their eyes caused a sudden flush to creep up his neck. Never had felt so…unwanted.

"You're probably the first outsider they've seen in years," Ezekiel explained with a low voice. "I'm sure many of them are thinking you will be publicly executed within the hour."

"You're very reassuring."

"I aim to please."

They took him to the center of the camp, which seemed to the nucleus of all Karagan activity. The number of villagers was the densest here, and almost all were gathered around a huge bonfire that lit up the beach like a grounded star. All voices ceased as the group entered the ring of people. The hunters circled the fire until they reached a cluster of old men – all covered almost completely in blue and white paint and wearing seagull feathers around their heads – where they stopped and pushed Aleksander forward.

The king stumbled forward on the sand. The moment he saw the old men he recognized their power, they must've been the chiefs of the tribe, the Karagan. He immediately went down on his knees and bowed his head low in front of them.

Ezekiel cleared his throat. "Bad idea. Where we're from, bowing is a sign of respect, but here, it is a sign of weakness. Like a dog with his tail between his legs. They think you are a fool because you remove them from sight and leave yourself vulnerable for attack."

Aleksander cursed inwardly. "What do I do?"

"Stand," one of the old men said. The man went to his feet, and Aleksander looked up to see his staring narrow-eyed at him, and the only feature that distinguished him from the other men was a faded pink scar running down his left cheek. "And tell us who you are."

How many people on this damn island know the common tongue and choose not to speak it in the proper time? Aleksander stifled his frustration and stood to his full height. He leveled his gaze at the assembly of villagers, which had grown larger by the second. The whole tribe was coming to see the spectacle.

"I am King Aleksander IV of Arendelle. I rule a land far from here, but was shipwrecked along with my wife, the queen, and a part of my crew. They have been captured by the Oathbreaker."

Worried murmurs arose at the mention of the name. The presiding chief lifted a hand, which Aleksander discovered was completely burned from the shoulder down, spoke a command in the Karagan language, and the crowd quieted.

"Were you alone?" said the chief.

"No," said Aleksander. "I was with the Moon Child."

At this the murmurs intensified, and it took the chief several tries before they became completely silent. Still, there was a charge in the air, a tangible expectation that roused the hearts of every villager, man woman and child.

"You speak truth?"

Aleksander nodded.

"Does _Kragaw_ agree?"

Ezekiel nodded. "I can testify to his words."

Aleksander looked at him. "Kragaw?"

The archer's smile was strained. "It means 'killer'."

Before Aleksander could fully digest this, the presumed leader called out, and a boy who looked no older than Jack rushed through the crowd like a salmon swimming upstream. He was holding something in his hands, and once he came within the reach of the firelight, Aleksander could see what it was.

The novitiate handed the staff over to the chief, who held it with a careful reverence that was reflected in the awed stillness of his face. The staff was nearly as tall as Aleksander, and it was crafted of a deep, rich wood, and the king could see a curious, swirling snowflake design etched into its dark surface. The chief held the crooked staff to his side like a shepherd overlooking his flock and fixed Aleksander an enigmatic stare.

"What's happening?"

"My best guess is that they're deciding whether or not to kill you."

The chief suddenly barked out a command. The crowd near him parted to reveal a tall hunter – he stood two heads taller than Aleksander – step forward. He too was painted in the same colors as the other warriors, but under his throat he wore a necklace with a gleaming shark tooth hanging in the center. Startlingly green eyes looked at the king with barely disguised contempt.

The chief said a word, and the hunter began to approach Aleksander.

"Who is that?" Aleksander asked warily.

"That would be Judor. Head Hunter, Fish-Master, and the Karagan's resident executioner.

"What is he going to do to me?"

Judor pulled out a knife from the cloth belt at his waist.

Ezekiel paled.

"Most likely?" he said. "He's going to kill you."

Judor walked towards Aleksander with the knife raised for the killing blow.

* * *

**A/N: Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed. Drop a review on your way out if you feel like it!**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: Again, it feels like I rushed this, but like you, I'm eager to get to the close of this arc. But for now, enjoy!**

* * *

The knife shone in the light of the bonfire.

Time slowed down, and it was as if Aleksander could feel the slow revolution of the world beneath his feet. Nothing else mattered save for the beating of his heart and the knife like a falling star approaching his open throat.

His first instinct was to fight. It was the natural urge, and the logical course of action. Ezekiel had told him that the Karagan favor feats of strength above all else. If Aleksander fought back and won, then surely the tribe would accept him into their arms. But this hunter – this Judor – was taller and stronger no doubt. Aleksander was weak and exhausted from the ambush by the Dalagan and the long walk to the camp, and there was very little chance he could fight back the man's attacks.

The knife was coming closer, so close he could see his expression on the sharpened blade. His face, his beard outgrown and skin pale and drawn, looked shockingly calm in the reflection, like a man who had accepted his fate long ago. Aleksander did not like that look. It scared him because it was also the look of a man who had given up and welcomed death.

When Aleksander died, he intended to die not in sickness, injury, or even in the heat of battle. He desired more than anything else to die on his bed surrounded by his children and his children's children, in peace and comfort and the knowledge that he done everything allotted to him in his long and happy life.

But something told him to stand still and watch his death approach him in the form of this savage man. Something told him to keep his arms at his sides and stare calmly into the hunter's eyes, eyes dark with malicious intent, and simply do nothing at all.

Aleksander closed his eyes.

_"Íla!"_

The knife stopped just centimeters from his open throat.

Judor frowned and looked at the chief elder. He opened his mouth to protest but the older man just waved his hand. Judor growled, sheathed the knife, stepped away from the still king, and walked back into the fold of the crowd. He was gone as soon as he had arrived, like a reaper of death dismissed from service by the power who authorized his coming and going. Aleksander waited a few heartbeats before opening his eyes once more and looking at the man who had saved him.

The elder stared pensively at Aleksander.

"Surprised?" he asked.

The man scowled.

"It was a test I was bound to fail. If I retaliated, I would have fought him but would eventually lose. If I didn't, your man would have killed me anyway. Either way, I die, a problem is resolved, and you can go on living your lives in peace." Aleksander met the man's eyes. "But something stopped you. You saw something in me you did not expect to see. That's why you would not let him kill me. That's why you saved me."

The elder raised his chin and slapped his neck with his hand. He spoke in the Karagan language, earning a few mutters of acknowledgment in the crowd. Ezekiel walked forward and whispered into the king's ear.

"He says that you do not fear death. That you stared into his best warrior's eyes, eyes that had inspired fear into the hearts of our enemies, and did not cower. You are not like the others."

"Forgive me, but I'm still trying to get over the fact that you stood there like a dumb sheep while a stranger was about to cut my throat."

Ezekiel smiled. "Oh you were fine. They did the same thing to me when I arrived."

"And you reacted in the same way?"

The archer snorted. "Are you joking? I pissed my pants. They let me survive out of pity, not admiration. I wasn't always this way, your highness. I had to earn my keep here, just like everyone else. It's how I got my bow."

"By gaining their trust?"

"By killing the Dalagan who owned it before me."

Aleksander was about to reply when the elders suddenly stood as one. The chief said something to his people, and they grumbled like spectators at an unexpectedly canceled event. The chief looked at Aleksander and waved him over.

"Looks like they're not done with you just yet," Ezekiel said. "Figures. These folks are all about their tests and trials."

Aleksander and Ezekiel followed the group of elders down the beach, passing clusters of villagers who snuck furtive glances and whispered excitedly amongst themselves. An old woman, face wrinkled like a prune, even reached over to touch the king's hand as he walked by. Aleksander frowned and moved his hand away, unnerved by the almost religious wonder in the woman's drooping but shining eyes. "What's wrong with them?"

"They're speaking about some prophecy of theirs," his friend explained. "They're calling you the false king, or something along those lines. Don't worry, it's all rubbish."

"What prophecy?"

Ezekiel shrugged. "There are thousands, so it's hard to pinpoint. But I think it has something to do with the Breaking."

"The Breaking?"

"The end of the Oathbreaker's rule. The Breaking of his evil and the beginning of a new age under the sun. It's quite prominent in their culture, actually, so I'm surprised as to why I didn't think of it at first. But like I said: it's just myth and legend passed down from generation to generation. A vital part of their culture, but fanciful imaginings."

Aleksander was embarrassed at the sudden attention. He was used to the adoration of his people, he was accustomed to seeing their faces shining with awe as he passed in a carriage or waved from a balcony in the castle, but this was different. There was a difference to being a king and being a god. A memory entered his head like the first spark of a fire from flint.

"Could they be saying 'Pretender-King', and not false king?"

Ezekiel took a moment to listen in. His eyes widened in mild surprise, and he nodded. "That's exactly what they're saying. On how you've come to bring aid to the Moon Child and set free the island from the Oathbreaker's evil hold. How did you know that?"

Aleksander frowned to himself, lost in thought. "Call it intuition."

They finally made it to their destination, a huge tent pitched by an outcropping of black rocks by the water. A large number of guards surrounded the tent, and they bristled at the sight of Ezekiel and Aleksander. The chief elder lifted his hand and stopped them from gutting the two intruders. They stepped back, but Aleksander could still feel the heat from their glares on his back as he ducked his head into the tent.

Ezekiel blew them a kiss and followed the king into the tent.

The elders were all gathered around in a circle surrounding a small fire, a miniature version of the communal bonfire that blazed in the center of the camp. There were over a dozen elders, all gray-haired old men who looked as rough as the boulders protecting the tent, and they all looked at Aleksander with a mixture of curiosity, judgment, disapproval, and open contempt. Aleksander ignored them and kept his head high.

The chief elder was sitting on a chair at the head of the council, the strange staff leaning against the arms of the plain wooden throne. He perched his chin on his hand and merely looked at Aleksander.

The whole room was silent, charged with tension.

"You confuse us."

The elder's voice was like the scrape of sandpaper against stone. It was rough and damaged, but still it exuded an aura of tough authority, and it was little wonder how he exacted power over the village. He had the unmistakable aura of a true leader. Aleksander regarded him a little differently then, just as he would regard Antony, or the princes of the Southern Isles, or any other monarch of the good country.

"You come like the cycles say," he said in a limited but passable common tongue. "Bound and blind, he comes and bids the bright blade to spill his lifeblood. That is what we were taught. That is what many of us believe." He shook his head. "But none of us think you come so soon. But here you are, like it was foretold."

Aleksander sighed as if in defeat.

"I am the Pretender-King."

The elders mumbled softly. Aleksander just hung his head. He did not want any part in prophecies or cycles. All he wanted to do was rescue his wife and his friends and go home. But if this was the price he must pay to do so then he was willing to pay it a thousand times over.

The chief elder silenced the circle with a raised hand.

"Brave words…" he said. He smiled, and his teeth were unusually clean and straight. "I am called Haldar."

"Aleksander."

Haldar nodded, and his gaze shifted to Ezekiel.

_"Kragaw."_

Ezekiel winked. "Haldy."

Haldar just glared.

"Back when I was new here," Ezekiel explained to Aleksander. "He was the Judor of the tribe. A little shorter, a bit flabbier around the stomach, but quite mean-tempered all the same. He doesn't like me much."

"I couldn't tell."

"_Kragaw_ has no place here," Haldar announced. "Leave us."

"I'll excuse myself, thank you very much. Good luck, Aleksander, and I really hope they don't kill you."

Ezekiel walked out of the tent, trailed by two nasty-looking guards. Aleksander suddenly felt very vulnerable now that he was alone and completely without friends. The elders weren't very glad that he was standing beside them, and if looks could kill…

Aleksander shook off the doubt like newly fallen snow and stood straight.

"If this prophecy is true, then you must know why I am here."

Haldar narrowed his eyes. He inclined his head, prompting Aleksander to continue.

"My wife and my comrades are in grave danger. The Oathbreaker, Ashanagarethanarak, has them imprisoned in his village." The mention of the name caused the circle of elders to stir uncomfortably. Haldar's face darkened.

"We do not speak that name here. Say it once more and we will feed you to the ocean."

Aleksander bowed his head. "Forgive me, I misspoke. May I continue?"

One of the elders spat. "We have heard everything we need! We are not stupid like the sea gull. We know what you want and we say no!"

Haldar lifted an eyebrow at Aleksander.

The king took a deep breath.

"I would like to ask for your help in rescuing the people whom I care about. I ask you to take up arms against the Dalagan."

The tent burst apart at the seams.

Aleksander cringed at the sudden outburst of shouts. Many of the elders stood – some leaning on canes for support – and pointed at him, spitting and no doubt cursing his life. Others were on their feet and berating these dissenters, waving their arms and casting glances at him that were full of hope and awe.

Haldar stood from his chair and slammed the staff on the ground.

Instantly the crowd quieted down. The elders sat to their previous positions on the sand, silent but still aching to speak, Aleksander could see that much. Whatever that staff was, it had the power to turn a room from blazing hot with debate to sub-zero with silence. Something nagged Aleksander at the back of his head, a recent memory of some sort, but the notion vanished as soon as it had come. Haldar surveyed the circle for a moment before sitting back on his throne.

"We do not know if we can do this," he finally said after a moment of thought.

Oh really? I hadn't guessed. Aleksander kept the thought to himself, but he allowed a nod of acknowledgement. "I understand if it is difficult to process."

"You would bring ruin to us!" cried an elder. "We live in peace and you bring the sword!"

"It is the sword that we need!" said yet another. "This is our chance to fulfill prophecy. To accomplish the task our fathers set before us and begin the Breaking!"

"And if we fail? If we meet the same fate as our brothers the Anagan and we are lost to creation? They suffered the price of war and we would be wise not to do the same."

"The Anagan foresaw this tragedy and died only because we did not give them the proper aid. We were cowards and we fled like women from the Oathbreaker and his beasts of men. Such was not the Karagan way!"

The room threatened to dissolve into chaos once more when Haldar lifted another commanding hand.

"This will not lead us anywhere," he said. "For now, we will do nothing against the Dalagan. This council is ended."

He tapped the butt of the crooked staff again, and the elders stood and began to file out of the tent, voices low in private conversation. They flowed around Aleksander like river water against a rock, the king frozen in frustration. He was about to open his mouth to protest when Haldar motioned to him. "Come," he said and gestured to a flap at the back of the tent. "Join me."

Aleksander consented.

He followed him out into the deep night. The air was cooler here than in the heart of the forest. It reminded him of his and Jack's camp on the other side of the island, where hope seemed so alive and within reach of actualization. Now, it was a world away, and Aleksander was beginning to wonder if he would ever see his wife and friends again.

Haldar leaned against his staff, feet in the rushing tide. Aleksander joined him, and both stared out into the utter blackness that waited beyond the homely light of the Karagan camp. The stars shone above them in the firmament like the souls of fireflies renewing their purpose above the earth, but out in the rim of the world, there seemed only the lightless void.

"I am sorry about your woman," Haldar said. "And your friends as well. It must be a terrible burden to bear."

Aleksander shrugged. "Bear it I must." He looked at the chief elder. "You speak the common tongue very well, I must add."

Haldar smiled, still staring out into the night beyond nights. "Ezekiel Fitzherbert was not the first to come within our lands, as much as he might think it is so. I learned your language from an Arendelle merchant many moons ago, and with his help, I instructed the other elders in it as well. I am proficient in it, but I pretend not to be so fluent when around many of my people. It would be too unsettling for them, as they are already distrusting of anything unknown as it is."

"You were driven from your home. To a degree, I can understand what that's like."

Haldar finally looked at him. He was old, maybe a decade or two older than Aleksander, but he still bore the physique of a man ten years his junior. But in his eyes was a pain that would last for eternity. "We were not just driven out. We were hunted like dogs. Shot down and pillaged and raped until we lost the trees and were welcomed by the ocean. I hate the Oathbreaker and his people with a passion beyond words, King Aleksander. You may claim to know his evil – forgive me for my rudeness – but you do not know the half of it.

"On the First Day of the Retaking our ancestors killed a sorcerer who had done many horrible things to the people of the island in his pursuit of knowledge. But unbeknownst to them, he had a son. When his son discovered that his father had been killed, he flew into a rage that burned a hundred men to ash."

Aleksander frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I do not speak figuratively, king. This son was cursed by the spirits with a fire inside of his heart. A fire that he could bend to his will and control it like one wields a sword. One can still visit the Old Village, at the foot of the mountains, and see the great pit of dead and blackened earth that remains from the son's fury."

Aleksander's stomach did an unpleasant flip at his words. "He could control fire…?"

"Like no other."

Was he born with the curse like Elsa? Finally he understood the words of the spirits in his dream: _a curse like your daughter's, but one of a different make. _Everything was beginning to unravel in such a way that he was drowned in the pile of connected conspiracies. His legs felt like they were about to give out from under him, but he held firm.

"What happened to this son?" He had heard the story from his talk with the spirits of the island, but it was possible that he could learn something new from the perspective of this man.

"Some say he died. He was either killed in the last days of the Retaking or he succumbed to the elements when in hiding. Many of my colleagues have dismissed him from suspicion. But I know better."

He turned to show Aleksander his left arm. It was red and swollen from a third - degree burn or something worse. The king involuntarily winced at the wound. "That looks bad. How were you burned?"

Haldar shook his head. "I wasn't. I was born with this burn."

Aleksander was shocked. "That…that isn't possible." Aleksander was willing to believe many things at this point, but this? This was just downright bizarre, and medically impossible. But if Aleksander learned one thing during his stay on this island, it was that nothing was as it seemed. "But how?"

"One of my ancestors was among the chief architects of the Retaking. He helped raise the enslaved tribes to their feet and fight back against their oppressors. He was there when the sorcerer's son razed the village to soot. He earned a burn that extended from the left shoulder down to his hand because of it. He survived the conflagration and lived many years leading the Three Tribes back to their rightful place, but the wound plagued him until his death. It was only when his only son was born that the price of his survival came to light."

Haldar examined his arm with a thoughtful frown.

"His son was born with the same exact scars on the same exact arm. A perfect replica of the original right down to the burn pattern. It was terribly extraordinary. The healers thought it a fluke and wrote it down in the annals as such, but when his son bore the same burn, they realized that this was more than a coincidence."

Aleksander nodded. He understood. He was horrified, but he understood.

"You are a descendant of that chief."

Haldar nodded, his aged face lined with worry. "I struggled for a long time with this. I was respected by my tribesmen, but because of my forefather's legacy, I was always separated from the rest of them. Whether I was held in awe or regarded in fear, it mattered not, because I was not with them. I was distant from their plight because of my inheritance, and that is the worst thing a leader can wish for. I'm sure you understand."

The king nodded. "Completely." He risked a glance at the chief's burn. It was gruesome yet utterly fascinating. "So anything the sorcerer's boy set aflame stayed burned forever? The village? The trees? The left arm in your bloodline?"

"As far as I know. But do you know what really terrifies me, king? What terrifies me more than even the prospect of my son bearing the same burn for the rest of his life?"

"What?"

"Magic wears out. We of the island know this because magic is not strange to us, as it is to your people. The enchantment, spell, or charm cast by the wielder is forever linked to the life of that wielder. It is the same with shamans, with beast-changers, and mages. Do you know what this tells me about my scar? About the crater of ruined earth by the mountains?"

Aleksander prompted him to continue.

"It tells me that if this burn remains in my line, the one who cast it is still alive."

The blood drained from Aleksander's face. An unwelcomed chill ran down his back, and he shuddered. The impossibility of it all bewildered him, but by then he was well acquainted with the feeling. So. What the spirits said had been true. The sorcerer's son was the Oathbreaker, and the Oathbreaker was Ashanagarethanarak. There had always been a niggling of doubt in his head, but with the chief's words, those doubts had been dispelled.

"Then if we kill him," said Aleksander. "Your curse dies along with the Oathbreaker."

"I suspect so."

"Then let us seize the opportunity while it is ripe for the taking! Why were you so reluctant during the council when you knew this? When you knew you could grant your descendants the freedom you did not have but longer for?"

Haldar sighed. "As much as I would like to see my family free from this curse, I am still Chief Elder. I must still look out for the safety of my people. A war with the Dalagan would be just but ultimately suicidal. They have more men, and the Oathbreaker still has his fire. It would be useless, and the livelihood we have long suffered to secure would be all for naught."

"Then what is the point? Why keep me here when there is nothing to be salvaged?"

"I am going against my better judgment. I have a feeling about you, Pretender-King or not, that I cannot shake. Something tells me keeping you with us is a good idea."

"But you will not help me."

Haldar stared out into the darkness. "That remains to be seen. Let time be the judge of this matter, Aleksander. Ashanagarethanarak will not harm your wife or the Moon Child, if the prophecy rings true."

Aleksander looked at him. "And why is that?"

Haldar said nothing. Aleksander waited for a moment, but soon looked away and joined the chief in his contemplative silence. They stared out into the empty edge of the world, the shifting ocean below and the starry sky above, like the statues of emperors old observing their dominion and judging its nature to be unfit to their preference. But they just continued to stare as the heavens twinkled and burned and the bottomless waters churned on and on under the cycle of the will of the world, hopeless to stop it but content to watch all the same to the end of their days.

**XXXXX**

A knock sounded on the door.

It was morning of the next day. They were making their final preparations before they were to escape the village. Danak whirled towards the noise. He had been wrapping bandages around Jack's midsection to give the impression that he was still recovering when the knock came. The healer and Jack exchanged a nervous glance. _Are you going to answer it?_ Jack mouthed. Danak nodded. _What other choice do we have?_

He slowly walked over to the door and opened it a crack.

"Good morning," said Ash with a cheery voice. "How is the Moon Child holding up?"

If Danak was surprised, he gave no indication. Instead, he only nodded grimly. "He is healing, but it will take a while before he fully recovers. We need more time."

"Of course. You will have all the time you need. I just wanted to have a word with our patient, if you don't mind."

Danak shrugged. "Not at all."

Jack's heart leapt to his throat. He watched with dread as Danak opened the door fully to let Ash in. He walked in with a small smile on his face. "Ah. Moon Child. You look well."

Jack was lying on the bed, feigning exhaustion. He opened one eye and opened his mouth to speak, but pretended to be too weak. He lay back, nearly gasping for breath. Danak inclined his head in an infinitesimal motion behind Ash's back. _Good. _The village leader waved his hand.

"You may wait outside, Danak."

Danak gave Jack one more worried glance before walking out and closing the door behind him. They were silent for a moment. The only light came from the little window facing Jack's bed, and the morning sun's rays fell on him alone and cast Ash in eerie darkness. The man's blue eyes twinkled merrily in the shadows.

"I truly regret having to punish you in such a way," he said. "I did not enjoy it, as much you may think I did."

Jack coughed. "It sure sounded like you did," he said in a weak voice.

Ash shook his head. "As I have said before: it was a teaching moment. My children needed to learn what happens when they rebel. I am certain now that they will whisper against me no longer."

"And if they do?"

Ash smiled. "Well. There are ways to remedy that."

"Gonna whip some more innocent people?"

"It was barbaric, and I regret it. There will be more civilized ways to deal with insurrection in the future. But discussing your punishment was not the prime reason I chose to visit you, Moon Child."

"And what reason is that?"

Ash came closer, and Jack began to recoil. He stopped himself before doing so, however, and let the man approach his bedside.

"It hurts me to see you like this."

"So you're the one in pain, now?"

"You have so much potential, Moon Child. There is greatness in you. I can sense it. While my people's silly prophecies are mere myth, there is a kernel of truth in each one. You may not be their savior, but in you lies power."

"Oh stop. You're making me blush."

Ash showed his teeth.

"We can do great things together, Moon Child. You and me, ruling over this island and ushering in a new era of peace and prosperity. That was always my plan. You might not see it straightaway, but I do care for this island and her people. With you and Elana at my side, there will be nothing to stop us."

Jack glared when he said Aleksander's wife's name. "What did you do to her?"

Ash sighed. "Nothing. Why must you suspect me so? I have treated her with nothing but kindness and affection since her arrival. She is stubborn, mind you, but I'd like to think that I am growing on her."

"You stay away from her!"

Ash leaned back. "So much fire. You heal fast."

Jack cursed himself for dropping his guard. He fell back on his bed and closed his eyes, once again pretending weakness. "You're lucky I don't heal faster."

Ash chuckled and ruffled Jack's white hair. "I'm certain. That's what I always liked about you. You're tenacious." He rubbed a strand of hair between his fingers. "And such a peculiar hair color. How did it become like this?"

Jack's stomach churned as the man touched him, but he lay still, not wanting to risk anything else. "Traumatic event."

"Hm. A strange phenomenon."

"Are we done here or are you just going to keep touching me?"

Ash released his hair and stepped back. "We are done. It seems that you are recovering speedily. I am happy for you. In due time I shall invite you to my hut. I'm sure you'll start seeing things my way, then."

Jack scoffed. "Right."

Ash turned to leave, and Jack was about to breathe a sigh of relief when the man suddenly turned around, finger pointed in the air as if remembering something. "Oh, and one more thing. I have not forgotten your insults when I was administering your punishment. I do not brook that sort of rebellion in my home. I care deeply for you, son, but if you continue to lose control over your speech I will be forced to punish you further."

"I thought you needed me."

"I would like you to be at my side in the coming age, Moon Child, but do not mistake that desire for vulnerability. I can get rid of you and suffer no harm to myself."

Jack narrowed his eyes. "And how are you going to do that?"

Ash smiled.

He snapped his fingers and the torch to his right, the torch that had been still hand dark and a few feet away from him, burst into flame.

"I have methods."

And with that, he opened the door and left Jack alone to stare with shock and awe at the sudden fire. He was still staring at the lit torch when Danak walked inside and shut the door behind him. He rushed over to Jack's side, old face creased with concern. "What happened? Did he do anything to you?"

Jack shook his head absently, eyes still on the fire.

Danak frowned and followed his gaze. He cursed when he saw the burning torch. "It is as I feared. He is losing patience?"

"How did he do that?" Jack said. "He didn't even touch it."

"There is much you do not know about him."

"Tell me."

"Ashanagarethanarak is far older than he looks. He was on this island in the time of the Retaking, and he was the son of a sorcerer and gifted with the curse of fire. He was able to escape the slaves' revenge, and, with the help of a golden flower, stay the same age over the centuries."

Jack closed his eyes and massaged his temples. "Okay, you're going to have to slow down. What in the world are you talking about?"

"When I was a boy, I looked up to him as a son looks up to his father. He treated me with love and kindness and taught me all I know about the healing arts. I thought he was perfect; a god among men." He shook his head sadly. "How mistaken I was."

"What happened to make you change your mind?"

Danak's eyes took on a measure of sorrow. "A group of sailors washed on our shores twenty years ago. They were wet, bedraggled, and filthy, but our master took them in and gave them shelter. He invited them over to his home and you could hear their laughter and conversation from outside. I was curious, but I was jealous. Why should they receive the luxury of his presence and not me? I was about to confront my master while he was dining when I noticed a commotion in the nearby forest. Curious, I checked what it was, and I was horrified.

"Sakaz and two other guards were beating a sailor, one separate from the others, with their clubs. They were laughing and spitting at his broken body and all the while he wept and pled for mercy. I intruded and demanded that they stop. Sakaz only spat, as is his custom, and told me that they were doing this not for their own personal pleasure – although they were deriving it from the task – but by the master's orders. I was stunned. Surely my good master would not treat another human being in such a way. But I was wrong.

"The following day Ashanagarethanarak took that sailor and cut his throat in front of the entire village. He said that the spirits demanded it and that the white man had deceived them and plotted to take over the village, just like the Fair Ones in the past. He then began to execute them one by one in front of us all, all in the name of the island's will. It was then that the illusion was broken. The master had revealed his true nature and I was appalled. Sad though I was, I needed to right this wrong in the name of the Dalagan, not in his name. So, I set free the last prisoner who was to be executed and bid him flee into the forest."

"Did he survive?"

"I do not know. But from that point on I no longer doted on the master's every word. Instead, I plotted his downfall."

"How?"

"As healer, one of my privileges is to commune with the spirits. Every full moon I grind the _Silva_ root and inhale its properties over a fire. Doing this I can listen to the voices of those who came before and be advised by their wisdom. They had been silent for a long time, and I was beginning to lose hope and thought that they would never commune with me. But that night, after I freed the sailor, I was able to listen to them speak. What they told me changed my life.

"They told me Ashanagarethanarak's true identity and of his origins with the Fair Ones. They told me of how he seduced the Dalagan, killed our leaders, and exacted his control over the tribe. They told me of how he wiped out the Anagan and drove the Karagan to the ocean. And they told me of how he had discovered a lone golden flower in a clearing in the forest, and how he had used it to keep himself young for all these years."

Jack's mind was reeling. It was too much to process, and he was having a hard time figuring out whether Danak was pulling his leg or telling him the truth. He looked serious enough, but the tale seemed far-fetched. "So…" he said, struggling to catch up. "Ash is really a couple thousand years old because he was using a glowing flower to stop old age?"

Danak nodded gravely. "It sounds ridiculous, but I swear it is the truth. Ashanagarethanarak had deceived us. I fear he plans to exact his revenge over the island over the extermination of his people and the death of his father."

"Hold on," Jack said, hand in the air. "Rewind. Ash has a flower of his own, but how do you have one yourself?"

Danak smiled. He reached under the bed and took out the flower, which deprived from sunlight still continued to shine with an otherworldly glow. "The spirits showed me the way to the Garden in our communion. I made my way there and took this from the hill it sprouted from. The spirits had told me to retrieve it for a great task in the future. I know that task now; it was to heal you."

Jack sighed. "This doesn't make any sense."

Danak patted his arm. "Do not worry. It will in due time. Once I take you to the Garden, you will finally begin to understand."

"What is the Garden? You keep talking about it like it is some holy place."

"There is nothing holier. The Garden is the wellspring of eternal life. The epicenter of the sun's gift to earth. Across its verdant hills grow hundreds of these flowers, hidden to shine forever. The master must have come across the product of a seed blown astray, and now he uses it for his own nefarious purposes. That is why you must help us, Moon Child. If Ashanagarethanarak finds the Garden, there will be nothing to stop him from taking over the entire island with ease.

"And all, including you, Moon Child, will be doomed."

Jack processed this with a heavy heart. Never before in his life had he felt such a mixture of rage and confusion. Rage because he felt angry at Ash and what he had done, but confused because…well, because it was just so damn confusing. But he got the gist of it, and that was if he didn't do something soon, everything would occur as Danak had predicted, and no one would be safe from Ash's wrath.

"So," he said, rejuvenated by the healer's tale. "When do we start?"

Danak smiled. "Soon. We shall wait until night falls, and only then will we execute our plan."

"Night. Great. And if we get caught?"

"Ash will burn us alive."

"Even better."

"As far as I know, there is no way to combat his fire. It is too hot, and born from a magic as old as creation."

Something clicked in Jack's head, and he looked down at his hand.

Maybe…

He opened it and inspected his palm, picturing an icicle forming and gleaming in the torch light.

Nothing happened.

Jack's heart fell. It was as he had suspected.

He had lost his powers completely.

Danak frowned. "What are you doing?"

Jack sighed and closed his hand. "Nothing. I'm doing nothing."

* * *

**A/N: Did it feel as rushed as I think it did? Tell me in the review section! Thanks for reading!**


End file.
